Introductions to Marxism

Daniel Bensaïd. 2010. Marx for Our Times. Verso.

David Camfield. 2017. We Can Do Better. Fernwood.

Alex Callinicos. 1983. The Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx. London: Bookmarks. (pdf)

Hal Draper. Karl Marx’s Theory of Revolution (5 vols). Monthly Review.

Peter Knapp and Alan Spector. 2011. Crisis and Change Today: Basic Questions of Marxist Sociology. Rowman & Littlefield.

Jeff Manza and Michael A. McCarthy. 2011. “The Neo-Marxist Legacy in American Sociology.” Annual Review of Sociology 37:155-183. (pdf)

Matt Vidal. 2015. “Marxism in Contemporary Sociology.” in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, edited by J. D. Wright: Elsevier. (pdf)

Matt Vidal, Tony Smith, Paul Prew, and Tomás Rotta. 2018. The Oxford Handbook of Karl Marx. New York: Oxford University Press.

 

Syllabi

The Marxist tradition in social theory (Michael Burawoy, UC Berkeley)

Karl Marx (Alex Callinicos, King’s College London)

Marxism, Imperialism, Racism (Jeffrey Montez de Oca, University of Colorado Colorado Springs)

Marxist Sociological Thought (Paul Prew, Mankato State)

Marxist theories of politics (Dylan Riley, UC Berkeley)

Analytical Marxism (Erik Olin Wright, UW Madison)

 

Editions of Marx’s Writings

1) Robert C Tucker (Ed). The Marx-Engels Reader. Norton.
Probably the best easily available single-volume selection.

2) David McLellan (Ed). Karl Marx: Selected Writings. Oxford.

3)  Marx & Engels, Collected Works. Progress Publishers/Lawrence and Wishart/International Publishers.
50 volumes published or in preparation.

4) Penguin Classics:

Early Writings
Grundrisse
Capital (3 vols)

 

Marxist Internet Archive

www.marxists.org/archive/marx/

Includes an encyclopedia of terms and has a variety of works from Marx and others available for download.

 

Marxism and feminism

Bhattacharya, Tithi. 2017. “Social Reproduction Theory: Remapping Class, Recentering Oppression.” Pluto. One place where Marxism is thriving that isn’t dominated by old white men. Stems from debates between feminism and Marxism and asks the question: how do capitalist societies reproduce themselves and what division of labor, between classes, genders, and races, constitutes this reproduction?

 

Education & Pedagogy

Teaching Sociology from a Marxist Perspective (Washington, DC: American Sociological Association, 2006), edited by Martha E. Gimenez and Brian P. Hawkins, in cooperation with the Section on Marxist Sociology. This book features an introductory essay and brief statements that discuss how Marx and Marxism inform an array of course syllabi, including Marxist Theory, Sociological Theory, Feminist Theory, Class/Race/Gender, Population/Environment, Political Sociology, Methods, Political Economy, Colonialism /Development/Globalization studies, Social Stratification, and Sociology of Art. It includes over 30 syllabi in both graduate and undergraduate courses. A separate section provides charts and diagrams, film resources, articles from Teaching Sociology, and classroom exercises, projects, and lectures for teaching Marxist concepts.

Marxist Perspectives in the Sociology of Education  by Maurice Levitas (London: Routledge, 2012). The major theories explored are those concerned with social mobility and those which derive from a relativist position in Sociology, both of which see education as a selection mechanism for a stratified society. Social class, family, sociolinguistics and schools are among the topics discussed. In this analysis the author:

  • Defines key areas in the sociology of education
  • Gives access to important concepts of Marx and Engels
  • Strengthens sociological starting points by adding a Marxist element
  • Discriminates between radically different directions in education
  • Maps the main features of long-term working class goals

This thoroughgoing Marxist critique of widely prevalent notions in the sociology of education provides a compass by which place and direction in this area of education may be found by students, teachers and parents.