Karl Marx: A Life by Francis Wheen (English) Paperback Book

Description: Karl Marx by Francis Wheen A biography of the man who, more than any other, made the twentieth century. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description A major biography of the man who, more than any other, made the twentieth century. Written by an author of great repute. The history of the 20th century is Marxs legacy. Not since Jesus Christ has an obscure pauper inspired such global devotion – or been so calamitously misinterpreted. The end of the century is a good moment to strip away the mythology and try to rediscover Marx the man. There have been many thousands of books on Marxism, but almost all are written by academics and zealots for whom it is a near blaspemy to treat him as a figure of flesh and blood.In the past few years there have been excellent and successful biographies of many eminent Victorians and yet the most influential of them has remained untouched. In this book Francis Wheen, for the first time, presens Marx the man in all his brilliance and frailty – as a poverty-stricken Prussian emigre who became a middle-class English gentleman; as an angry agitator who spent much of his adult life in scholarly silence in the British Museum Reading Room; as a gregarious and convivial host who fell out with almost all his friends; as a devoted family man who impregnated his housemaid; as a deeply earnest philosopher who loved drink, cigars and jokes. Notes The first populist biography which took the Bestseller lists by storm in hardback now comes in B format. The end of millennium timing for publication has worked well and this paperback edition will be submitted for major summer reading selections and the author will be promoting. Author Biography Francis Wheen is a prolific freelance journalist and broadcaster, and has worked for the New Statesman, Independent, Mirror, Gay News, Today, New Socialist and Tatler. Having presented News-Stand on BBC Radio 4 for a number of years, Francis has appeared often on ITVs What the Papers Say and more recently on BBC2s Have I Got News For You. He is now the writer of Wheens World a regular column appearing in the Guardian – for which he was voted Columnist of the Year.His previous books include The Sixties (1982), Television (1985), The Battle for London (1985), Tom Driberg (1990) which was shortlisted for the Whitbread Biography Award, and the bestselling How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered the World (2004). Karl Marx was published by Fourth Estate in 2000 and was shortlisted for numerous awards including the WH Smith Literary Award; the Samuel Johnson Prize; the Orwell Prize; the Silver Pen Award; and the Marsh Award.Francis Wheen lives in Essex. Kirkus UK Review Beatified in the Soviet bloc and vilified in the West throughout the Cold War, Karl Marx has always been the victim of his own notoriety. Wheen has gone some way, however, towards correcting this. Like many geniuses Marx was monstrously egotistical, often careless of the feelings of others and scornful of political rivals. Born the son of a Jewish laywer in Trier he was forced to flee the continent after the publication of the inflammatory communist manifesto in 1848. In London, where much of the rest of his life was spent in the scholarly silence of the British Museum Reading Room, he and his family were often in poverty. Portrayed here by Wheen as a rather Dickensian, middle-class English gent fallen on hard times, Marx was in fact a complex and contradictory man; flamboyant, charming and even at times richly comic, he could also be moody and irascible. He died in 1883, stateless and intestate. An entertaining and balanced biography. (Kirkus UK) Kirkus US Review Superb life of the thinker who, for better or worse, molded the 20th century.Marx once proclaimed, famously, that he was not a Marxist. If pressed, British journalist Wheen would probably claim Marxist credentialsif of a distinctly irreverent stripe. (For example, his extraordinarily well-conceived biography of communisms guiding light is probably the first to press the comedy troupe Monty Python into exegetical service.) Wheens satirical edge does not, however, make his study any less serious; it is as well-documented as Isaiah Berlins 1963 biographyand certainly more interesting to read. Marx, Wheen allows, was a paradoxical sort: a Jew who disavowed Judaism; an ardent moralist who fathered an illegitimate child by a servant; a communist firebrand who lived well beyond his means and aggressively mooched off well-to-do acquaintances (especially his forbearing colleague Friedrich Engels). But Marx was also fearless, unafraid of a good fight, and accustomed to a life in which grubby police spies from Prussia lurked all too conspicuously outside, keeping note of the comings and goings, while irate butchers and bakers and bailiffs hammered on the door. Wheen makes a number of useful revisions to the historical record; whereas many biographers paint Marxs relationship with the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin as a bitter and hateful rivalry, Wheen documents that the two were friendly in person and borrowed liberally from one anothers store of ideas. Engels emerges from the record, too, with his reputation restored: in Wheens pages he is not the toady of other biographies, but a critical and thoughtfulif sometimes beeryparticipant in the shaping of Marxs thought. Wheen takes vigorous issue with those countless wiseacres who, on one hand declare that Marxs thought leads directly to the Gulag and, on the other, hold that Marxs ideas are irrelevant to the modern, postCold War world. Neither view, Wheen holds, is correctand neither is useful to reckoning the extent of Marxs role in making the world in which we live.Respectful yet non-hagiographic, Wheens life of Marx deserves a wide readership. (Kirkus Reviews) Prizes Short-listed for WH Smith Literary Prize 2000 Short-listed for Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 2000 Short-listed for Channel 4 Political Book of the Year Award 1999 Short-listed for Political Book of the Year 1999 Long Description A major biography of the man who, more than any other, made the twentieth century. Written by an author of great repute. The history of the 20th century is Marxs legacy. Not since Jesus Christ has an obscure pauper inspired such global devotion or been so calamitously misinterpreted. The end of the century is a good moment to strip away the mythology and try to rediscover Marx the man. There have been many thousands of books on Marxism, but almost all are written by academics and zealots for whom it is a near blaspemy to treat him as a figure of flesh and blood. In the past few years there have been excellent and successful biographies of many eminent Victorians and yet the most influential of them has remained untouched. In this book Francis Wheen, for the first time, presens Marx the man in all his brilliance and frailty as a poverty-stricken Prussian emigre who became a middle-class English gentleman; as an angry agitator who spent much of his adult life in scholarly silence in the British Museum Reading Room; as a gregarious and convivial host who fell out with almost all his friends; as a devoted family man who impregnated his housemaid; as a deeply earnest philosopher who loved drink, cigars and jokes. Feature * The first treatment of its kind of this major figure * Drawing on primary research through previously ignored archives * Massive solus review coverage in the press and radio feature coverage * A prime target for the Christmas biography market * Submitted for all major Christmas retail promotions Description for Sales People A major biography of the man who, more than any other, made the twentieth century. Written by an author of great repute. The history of the 20th century is Marxs legacy. Not since Jesus Christ has an obscure pauper inspired such global devotion - or been so calamitously misinterpreted. The end of the century is a good moment to strip away the mythology and try to rediscover Marx the man. There have been many thousands of books on Marxism, but almost all are written by academics and zealots for whom it is a near blaspemy to treat him as a figure of flesh and blood. In the past few years there have been excellent and successful biographies of many eminent Victorians and yet the most influential of them has remained untouched. In this book Francis Wheen, for the first time, presens Marx the man in all his brilliance and frailty - as a poverty-stricken Prussian emigre who became a middle-class English gentleman; as an angry agitator who spent much of his adult life in scholarly silence in the British Museum Reading Room; as a gregarious and convivial host who fell out with almost all his friends; as a devoted family man who impregnated his housemaid; as a deeply earnest philosopher who loved drink, cigars and jokes. * The first treatment of its kind of this major figure * Drawing on primary research through previously ignored archives * Massive solus review coverage in the press and radio feature coverage * A prime target for the Christmas biography market * Submitted for all major Christmas retail promotions Details ISBN1841151149 Author Francis Wheen Publisher HarperCollins Publishers Year 2000 ISBN-10 1841151149 ISBN-13 9781841151144 Format Paperback Publication Date 2000-08-03 Imprint Fourth Estate Ltd Place of Publication London Country of Publication United Kingdom DEWEY 335.4092 Media Book Language English Illustrations black & white illustrations Pages 448 Short Title Karl Marx Subtitle A Life UK Release Date 2000-08-03 Alternative 9780007387595 Audience General AU Release Date 2000-09-30 NZ Release Date 2001-03-18 We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. 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