Marx as Sociologist

KARL MARX, SELECTED WRITINGS IN SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, edited with an introduction and notes by T. B. Bottomore and Maximilien Rubel. Watts & Co. London, 1956. 268 pp. 21 s.

This book is required reading for all DISSENT readers. Radicals needn’t be Marxists, but they should know Marx.

American students of Marx have long been hampered by the fact that some of his most important writings, especially the earlier ones, are not available in English. This accounts in part for the seriously deficient interpretations of his work which one encounters not only among his adversaries, but also among the professed defenders of Marx. The complex and many-faceted structure of Marx’s thought can be fully understood only if the manuscripts prior to the Communist Manifesto are taken into consideration, and it is these, precisely, which in their majority have not yet been translated.

The present volume contains enough selections f...