Dispatches for the New York Tribune: Selected Journalism of Karl Marx (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

~ Karl Marx (Author), Francis Wheen (Foreword), James Ledbetter (Contributor) "With the possible exception of human slavery, no topic raised Marx's ire as profoundly as the opium trade with China..." (more)
Key Phrases: issuing department, provincial war, second opium war, United States, Crédit Mobilier, East India Company (more...)

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Product Description

A compelling, wide-ranging collection of Karl Marx’s journalism—available only from Penguin Classics

Karl Marx is arguably the most famous political philosopher of all time, but he was also one of the great foreign correspondents of the nineteenth century. Drawing on his eleven-year tenure at the New York Tribune (which began in 1852), this completely new collection presents Marx’s writings on an abundance of topics, from issues of class and state to world affairs. Particularly moving pieces highlight social inequality and starvation in Britain, while others explore his groundbreaking views on the slave and opium trades. Throughout, Marx’s fresh perspective on nineteenth-century events reveals a social consciousness that remains inspiring to this day.

About the Author

Karl Marx (1818–1883), an influential political philosopher, was the author of Capital and many other writings. He also cowrote, with Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto.
James Ledbetter is a senior editor at Time Europe.
Francis Wheen is an award-winning author and journalist. His acclaimed biography of Karl Marx has been translated into twenty languages.

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics (February 26, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0141441925
• ISBN-13: 978-0141441924
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #209,130 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating collection, February 27, 2008

By	William Podmore (London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

These articles, on a huge range of subjects, were written and published between 1852 and 1861. The Tribune's circulation at the time was 200,000, the world's largest.

There are nine articles on China, covering the British state's Opium Wars and its atrocities there. The British state produced opium in India, forced it on China by unprovoked attacks, and then turned round and accused the Chinese of attacking Britain, with "the flimsy pretence that English life and property are endangered by the aggressive acts of the Chinese."

Marx also produced nine articles on wars, revolutions and counter-revolutions in Europe, particularly Greece, Italy, Prussia and Spain.

Nine articles examined events in India, mainly the 1857 revolt in India and changes in imperial finances. Marx wrote that capitalist progress "will neither emancipate nor materially mend the social condition of the mass of the people, depending not only on the development of the productive powers, but on their appropriation by the people." He showed how vicious imperial rule was, citing Lord Dalhousie, India's governor general from 1848 to 1856, "torture in one shape or other is practised by the lower subordinates in every British province."

In eight articles, Marx analysed the struggles in the USA, the British government's role in the slave trade, the mill owners' and The Times' support for the slaveholding South in the American civil war. The mill workers, by contrast, supported the North and abolition, at great cost to themselves. Marx showed how the slave trade was integral to capitalism.

He also produced 14 articles on British politics and society, several elections, `a venal and reckless press', starvation and the Highland clearances, and 11 on poverty, riches and inequality, against global free trade and its promises of peace and prosperity, the financial panic of 1857 with its failing dodgy banks, and the condition of the working class.