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Modern French Marxism. Expanded and Revised 2nd Edition

Buy hardcover (Brill)
Published Aug 2025

Michael Kelly

Author: Michael Kelly
Marxist thought was a powerful force in French political and intellectual life throughout the twentieth century. This book takes you from its early beginnings to its peak in the 1970s, when it dominated the battle of ideas. You will follow conceptual debates on the materialist dialectic, explore Marxism as a system of thought, and experience the ambition of the men and women of letters who sought to change the world. This second edition is augmented with essays on how Marxist thinkers grappled with religion, everyday life, the Cold War, and other leading intellectual movements.

Biographical Note

Michael Kelly is Emeritus Professor of French at the University of Southampton. He has published widely on French intellectual movements and French culture of the twentieth century, on European language policy and on languages in war and conflict.

Readership

This book is particularly relevant for readers interested in Marxism, radical thought, critical theory, and the history of ideas. It will also be valuable to students of political philosophy, as well as French history and culture.

Table of Contents

Introduction to the Second Edition

Introduction to the First Edition

1 Beginnings 1845–1929
1 Marx, Engels, and the Hegelian Dialectic
2 Marxism in France before 1917
3 Hegel in France
4 The 1920s

2 The Irruption 1929–39
1 Marxism and the Crisis of the 1930s
2 A New Elaboration
3 The Self-Inverting Dialectic
4 Stalin and Dogmatism
5 In Defence of Materialism

3 War and Post-War 1939–48
1 Marxism and the Second World War
2 Liberation and Reconstruction
3 Towards an Objective Idealism
4 Back to Hegel

4 Cold War 1948–56
1 Two Camps
2 Nadir of Philosophy
3 Stirrings of Recovery
4 The Early Althusser
5 Critiques of the Existentialist Dialectic

5 New Beginnings 1956–62
1 1956 and its Aftermath
2 Lefebvre’s Problems with Marxism
3 Dialectics and Dialogue
4 Existentialism and the Dialectic

6 Innovations 1962–8 Part One
1 Althusser: Against Inversion
2 Contradiction and Overdetermination
3 The New Model Dialectic
4 Althusser and Garaudy

7 Explorations 1962–8 Part Two
1 The Destalinisation of Philosophy
2 Godelier and the Cybernetic Dialectic
3 Tran Due Thao’s Materialist Inversion
4 Garaudy’s pluralist dialectic
5 Sève and the Scientific Dialectic

8 Changes 1968–74
1 1968
2 The Fate of Garaudy
3 Development of Althusser’s Theory
4 Sève and the New Consensus

9 New Directions 1974–80
1 Jaeglé, Science, and Dialectics
2 Labica Against Philosophy
3 D’Hondt on Contradiction and Difference
4 Mercier-Josa and the Detour via Hegel

10 Conclusion to the First Edition

11 Annotated Bibliography
1 French History
2 French Marxism
3 Individual French Marxists

12 Marxism and Faith

13 Les Lendemains qui Pensent

14 French Intellectuals and Zhdanovism

15 The Historical Emergence of Everyday Life

16 Towards a Heuristic Method: Sartre and Lefebvre

17 Demystification: A Dialogue Between Barthes and Lefebvre

References
Index