The Life, Work and Legacy of Friedrich Engels

Emerging from Marx's Shadow

Eberhard Illner, Hans A. Frambach, Norbert Koubek, Eberhard Illner, Hans A. Frambach, Norbert Koubek

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9781350272675
• eBook ISBN: 9781350272705
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: History

As the author of The Condition of the Working Class in England and, along with Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto, Friedrich Engels is a seminal 19th-century figure; the co-founder of Marxism, he left an indelible impression as a philosopher, political theorist, economist, historian and revolutionary socialist. The Life, Work and Legacy of Friedrich Engels is nevertheless the first book to comprehensively explore Engels' contributions in all of these spheres. The book sees 13 experts from a range of scholarly backgrounds examine Engels and his writing in relation to topics including the United States and the future of capitalism, European social democracy and the nature of the political economy, with technology, capital, and labor acting as fundamental cross-cutting themes throughout. The volume analyses the intriguing relationship between Engels and Karl Marx, the towering historical figure whose long shadow has obscured the achievements of Engels for so long, and reassesses Engels' significance in this context. There are 66 images to be found throughout the text, 30 of these in colour, as well as a conclusion which successfully views Engels in the context of the age. As a journalist, author and communist figurehead, Engels dealt succinctly – and with strong opinions – with the core questions of the developments changing the globe in the 19th century and The Life, Work and Legacy of Friedrich Engels finally shines a light on this in a compelling call for revisionism.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• List of Plates
• List of Figures
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 ‘My Immortal Works’: Friedrich Engels as Journalist and Publicist – An Overview
• Chapter 2 Engels on Marx: Biography as politics
• Chapter 3 Friedrich Engels, Victor Adler and Austromarxism
• Chapter 4 Man and machine: Conceptions of Technology in the Writings of Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx and Ernst Kapp
• Chapter 5 ‘The General’ as admiral: Friedrich Engels and the Naval Warfare Debate
• Chapter 6 The ‘promised land’? Friedrich Engels, the United States and the Future of Capitalism
• Chapter 7 The transformation of the world: Friedrich Engels and the Development of Productive Forces in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century
• Chapter 8 The revolutionizing of labour: Friedrich Engels and the changing face of work in Manchester and London
• Chapter 9 The economic thought of his age: Friedrich Engels and the tension between creation and destruction
• Chapter 10 ‘This Frederick! This Frederick! A Naughty Wicked Boy Was He …’: Engels, Marx and the critique of political economy
• Chapter 11 Repairing Das Kapital?: Friedrich Engels and the publication of Das Kapital II and III
• Chapter 12 Work and ‘the company’: Historical and current trends
• Chapter 13 Overview: Engels in his time
• Chapter 14 Annex: Note on the editorial history of Marx’s and Engels’ writings
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Plates Images
• Index
• Copyright Page