Friday 13 April 2012

Book Review: Why Marx Was Right By Terry Eagleton


Recommended as a primer for anyone unfamiliar with the ideas of Karl Marx, probable the most misunderstood thinker in history. Terry Eagleton's  prose is erudite but accessible to the general reader, sprinkled with sarcastic humour, as he debunks the main arguments of Marx's modern day opponents. A serious weakness of the book though lies in the downplaying of the authoritarian nature of the Bolsheviks (Lenin and Trotsky) and its political structures, that eventually resulted in the tyranny of Stalin. There is no mention of the autonomous Marxist tradition (closer to anarchism) and he seems to dismiss (like Lenin) this side of revolutionary Marxism as an 'infantile disorder.'

An interesting review by Owen Hatherley in the Guardian here. This is also a review of Lars T Lih's biography of Lenin.      


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