HIST 339
Marx and His Times Spring 2015
Division II
This is not the current course catalog

Growing economic inequality–at home and in the world– is fuelling powerful new protest movements reminiscent of the times of revolution in which Karl Marx played such an important role. Not surprisingly, activists, journalists, and academics have revived interest in studying Marx — the man, the activist, the theoretician– to discover his continuing relevance today. In this class, we will study Marx by reading his major political writings– The Communist Manifesto, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, The Civil War in France — in the context of the revolutions he was engaged in (the 1848 revolutions, the Paris Commune of 1871); we will study his activism, particularly the organization of the First International (1864-1876), Marx’s disputes with anarchists and social democrats (Critique of the Gotha Programme), and his attitude towards the non-white world, through reading his correspondence and newspaper articles, as well as recent biographies; and we will read excerpts from his major theoretical and philosophical works, e.g., On the Jewish Question, The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts and Capital, with an eye towards understanding how he changed and developed his ideas over time.