Jonathan SperberReseñas

Reflecting and Transforming
This biography of Karl Marx tries to situate the philosophy’s works and his political initiatives in the context of 19th century Europe. In doing that, the book gives more attention to the facts that shape Marx’s ideas than to the content and effects of his works. The exposition is clear and fluid. The description of Marx’s family life allows the reader to understand the difficulties he endured and how someway he succeeded in doing his work. Marx was a revolutionary that never capitulated with the ruling Elite, specially in Prussia and Russia. His efforts and reflections are a treasure to mankind.

The virtue of the book is that Sperber aligns Marx's work with the political issues of his day. For those with practice reading abstract philosophical treastises, this book should be a breeze. It wasn't always so for me, but Sperber does about as good a job as can be expected smoothing many thorny matters out.

Important note for Kindle readers: the links to the book's notes do not work iso if the notes are important to you, do not choose the Kindle edition.

As a non-academic layperson, this book was a bit of a stretch. It is as much a discussion of Hegelianism and positivism as it is a biography, and I felt a bit at sea without a steadfast understanding of these things. Still, Spurber has a firm grasp of his subject and of the attending historical, philosophical and economic factors of the day and guides the reader quite capably through Marx's times and his life.

The hardest thing for me to deal with was that Marx seems inherently unlikeable as a person and his political and economic ideas seem driven more by his personal hatred for Prussia, the Czar and his scorn for the Bourgeoisie than by any kind of real concern for the future of humanity. This is a man who expounded on economic theory yet could never manage to pay his own bills. He was a man who extolled the proletariat yet was appalled at the possibility of having to give up his servant and his middle class status. And perhaps, most importantly, as Spurber deftly illustrates, Marx's thinking was imprisoned within his own time and looking back to the French Revolution; he did not have the imagination or the crystal ball to foresee how capitalism would evolve in the 20th century and beyond. To me, his theories seem woefully irrelevant.

As the author admonishes, Marxism as it has been co-opted by its latter-day adherents bears only a fragile resemblance to Marx's own (oft re-formulated) theories. He does seem to attract those who, like him, simply want to tear down and destroy. One wonders if, had the essentially bourgeois Marx had been able to find a job after his college graduation, that we might have spared us the carnage of Stalinist Russia and Maoist China.

I picked up this textbook after reading Sperber's great short survey of the revolutions of 1848 and am not disappointed. It's clearly organized and vigorously argued, subtle and creative in the many different approaches it takes to the period. Military strategy, comparative politics, economic history, gender relations, you name it, it's in here. Excellent descriptive bibliography, too.

Brilliant, readable grand summary of these revolutions. It is not the most dramatic book, if drama means leading personages and famous events. But it makes the case (overwhelmingly) that this way of looking at 1848 fails to capture what is really unique: the dramatic expansion of political experience, beyond the tiny minorities that had participated in politics before. Outside of Paris and Vienna, beyond the labor movement, Sperber shows that the mid-century revolutions were more inclusive than the French Revolution, even if less "successful," and set a high-water mark for political participation that would not be reached again for fifty years. Particularly strong IMHO on the Habsburg Empire and its periphery, the part that I've really struggled to get (or to care about): Hungry, Romania, Croatia, places like that, and on the issues of religion and nationalism. Great selective bibliography, too. Can't say enough good things about this lucid, sweeping but surprisingly short book.

2483 Popular Catholicism in Nineteenth-Century Germany, by Jonathan Sperler (read 17 Jan 1993) This book did not live up to my expectations. It did talk some about missions, pilgrimages, and processions, but most of its time is spent on political events, or elections involving Catholics. The time is mainly from 1830 to 1880, and shows that in Westphalia and the north Rhineland the Catholics became better Catholics during that time. But not one word in the book about my great-great-uncle Franz Hitze, or about emigration to America (my maternal grandparents emigrated from Westphalia in 1874 and 1885).