The First Marx

Reviews / Votes

In The First Marx, Douglas Burnham and Peter Lamb diligently and brilliantly build a temporally resonant Marx out of his early writings, and garner his splintered insights to work as a distinct political philosophy. They have equally productively and generatively applied Marxian ideas to the contemporary human condition in ways that open the door to future research and scholarship on Marx. The First Marx will long endure as a must-have primer for both early and advanced students and scholars of Marx. * LSE Review of Books * The authors present a serious and often well-argued analysis of the political philosophy of the young Marx. * Marx & Philosophy Review of Books * Much more than a study of the Marx's early writings, The First Marx draws on an unusually wide array of primary source materials. Burnham and Lamb construct a first political philosophy for Marx that reflects the power and sweep of his critical thinking. Thematic chapters provide new insights into alienation, exploitation, emancipation and other concepts that Marx developed philosophically. In this book we are presented with a coherent picture that biographical studies do not achieve. The early Marx did not know that he would become the later Marx, and Burnham and Lamb have done us a service in stopping the clock at a crucial point. * Terrell Carver, Professor of Political Theory, University of Bristol, UK * The First Marx fills a gap in the literature on Marx by taking Marx's early work, seriously as a complete philosophical system. It is an invaluable resource for understanding key terms in Marxism such as "alienation," and would lend itself to discussion of humanism as well as the importance of Marx's early work as foundational to the entire concept of social construction. * Judith Grant, Professor of Political Science, Ohio University, USA *