Karl Marx: A Life [Hardcover]

Francis Wheen (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 039304923X | ISBN-13: 978-0393049237 | Publication Date: May 2000 | Edition: 1st Ed. (U.S.)

Paradox and passion were the animating spirits of Karl Marx's life, which often reads like a novel by Laurence Sterne or George Eliot. "Imagine Rousseau, Voltaire, and Hegel fused into one person," said a contemporary, "and you have Dr. Marx." In this stunning book, the first major biography of Marx since the end of the Cold War, Francis Wheen gives us not a socialist ogre but a fascinating, ultimately humane man. Marx's marriage to Jenny von Westphalen, whose devotion was tested by decades of poverty and exile, is as affecting a love story offered by history, while his friendship with Friedrich Engels is by turns hilarious and inspiring. Wheen does not, however, shy away from Marx's work. Was he, as his detractors have claimed, a self-hating Jew? What did Marx really mean by his famous line, "Religion is the opiate of the masses"? Is Capital deserving of the ridicule with which modern-day economists have dismissed it? Marx lived both at the center and on the fringes of his age. He also changed the world. With Karl Marx, Francis Wheen has written a hugely entertaining biography of one of history's most unforgettable players.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Karl Marx, whose influence on modern times has been compared to that of Jesus Christ, spent most of his lifetime in obscurity. Penniless, exiled in London, estranged from relations, and on the run from most of the police forces of Europe, his ambitions as a revolutionary were frequently thwarted, and his major writings on politics and economics remained unpublished (in some cases until after the Second World War). He has not lacked biographers, but even the most distinguished have been more interested in the evolution of his ideas than any other aspect of his life. Francis Wheen's fresh, lively, and moving biography of Marx considers the whole man--brain, beard, and the rest of his body. Unencumbered by ideological point scoring, this is a very readable, humorous, and sympathetic account. Wheen has an ear for juicy gossip and an eye for original detail. Marx comes across as a hell-raising bohemian, an intellectual bully, and a perceptive critic of capitalist chaos, but also a family man of Victorian conformity (personally vetting his daughters' suitors), Victorian ailments (carbuncles above all), and Victorian weaknesses (notably alcohol, tobacco, and, on occasion, his housekeeper). But there is great pathos, too, as Marx witnessed the deaths of four of his six children. For those readers who feel Marxism has given Marx a bad name, this is a rewarding and enlightening book. --Miles Taylor, Amazon.co.uk

From Publishers Weekly

"It is time to strip away the mythology," writes Wheen, "and try to rediscover Karl Marx the man." In the first major biography of Marx since the end of the Cold War, Wheen does just that as he looks for the man lurking behind the myths of both enemies and disciples, the misinterpretations and the academic jargon. What he finds is somebody who will suit nobody's purposes--Marx, Wheen argues, lived his life messily. He was neither a clearheaded revolutionary nor an unrepentant hypocrite, but he wasn't the anti-Christ either. More or less incapable of holding down a steady, salaried job, he mooched off of his selfless wife, Jenny (an aristocrat fallen on hard times), and his well-to-do ideological partner, Friedrich Engels, and spent his time obsessively writing unreadable, unmarketable economics tracts. He also spent a good deal of time preaching the imminent revolution of the masses (with whom he appears to have had little affinity). Following Marx from his childhood in Trier, Germany, through his exile in London, Wheen, a columnist for the British Guardian, takes readers from hovel to grand house, from the International Working Man's Association to Capital, from obscurity to notoriety and back again. (Only 11 mourners attended Marx's funeral.) The narrative veers unsteadily from scorn to admiration for the bearded philosopher. Wheen begins by jeering at Marx's cantakerousness and ends by lauding him as a prophet and a brave survivor of poverty and exile. In the end, Wheen's breezy, colorful portrayal is as eccentric as its subject. 16 pages of illustrations not seen by PW.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1st Ed. (U.S.) edition (May 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 039304923X
• ISBN-13: 978-0393049237
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,218,631 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #31 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( M ) > Marx, Karl

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable!, September 9, 2000

By 

Chad Bagley "Chad" (Shanghai China/Provo, UT) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Karl Marx: A Life (Hardcover)

Enjoyable and witty read on the life of Karl Marx. If I have any complaints it's that when I finished the book I still didn't have a very good grasp of his economic and political philosophy or how he came to his conclusions within a historical context. Nevertheless, Francis Wheen does give a good view of Marx's family life and helps to clear up some common misconceptions about Mark's overall character.

17 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Karl Marx - the first biography to describe the person, April 23, 2000

By 

Frances E. Kinsella - See all my reviews

This review is from: Karl Marx: A Life (Hardcover)

This is the first book to describe Marx as a person, a father, husband, friend and individual. Previous books have focused on his theories and/or philosophy. Thus they describe him as a genius or a devil depending on the author's political persausion. Well worth reading. Full of humour, and interesting anecdotes. Marx comes across as being very much more a man than a monster!

43 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent view of a human Marx, but partisan., May 12, 2000

By 

Ralph H. Peters (Washington, D.C. area) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Karl Marx: A Life (Hardcover)

This is a highly-readable account of the life of a genuinely unpleasant and selfish man who changed the world. I have read several biographies of Marx, as well as wading through Das Kapital in the original, but none has done such a fine job of bringing the man himself to life. Wheen's research is excellent, and his prose, though sometimes just a bit too colloquial, is refreshingly cant free and smooth. I would gladly have given this entertaining (isn't it remarkable that a book about Marx can be called "entertaining?") book five stars, but the author has one flaw that ultimately becomes laughable. After repeatedly reporting what a noxious beast and vicious betrayer of friends and human trust Marx was his entire adult life, Wheen invariably hastens to excuse Marx and assure us that he was actually a lovely, pleasant, hearty, generous prankster of a fellow. The author has been seduced by his subject, and Marx, who did much wrong, can do no wrong for Wheen. All others are disparaged with relish (poor old Bakunin gets even worse than he deserves, and every other Socialist, anarchist, would-be Communist--even Engels--must be tramped down so Marx the noble soul can be elevated). Well, too much complaint. This is a good and useful book, taken with a few dozen grains of salt. And Francis Wheen did bring the selfish old self-centered huckster to life, while providing a sort of Marx For Dummies explanation of what the man wrote. Paradoxically, this book works best for someone who has already been through a good bit of Marx, and who also enjoys some familiarity of with the work and lives of his contemporaries--that way the text adds to one's knowledge while allowing for a bit of discrimination when Wheen starts gushing about Marx's underlying goodness. Reading carefully, one gets a fine picture of the man; reading without wit or context, the portrait of Marx becomes whoppingly distorted.