Biographies of Karl Marx

Karl Marx (5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. Born in Trier to a middle-class family, he later studied political economy and Hegelian philosophy.

Quite a lot of biographies have been written about the famous revolutionary.

Until 2019, there was no overview of these biographies available. In 2019 Angelo Segrillo published "Two Centuries of Karl Marx Biographies: An Overview". He points out that, although there are many books written about Marx's work and his ideas, real biographies, in the sense of studies of the life of Marx, are much less common. And of course it is difficult to separate the life and the work. The so-called "intellectual biographies" (of which the 1939 book of Isaiah Berlin is the best example), describe (shortly) the life of the thinker, but have a primary focus on the development of his ideas. The 1939 book of Karl Korsch treats nearly completely the evolution of Marx's thought.

Franz Mehring (1918) — Karl Marx: The Story of His Life

Main article: Karl Marx: The Story of His Life

Originally published in German in 1918 as Karl Marx. Geschichte seines Lebens, written by Franz Mehring, a German historian and translated in English in 1935 by Edward Fitzgerald as Karl Marx: The Story of His Life. During a large part of the twentieth century this book was considered the classical biography of Marx. The work has been translated into many languages, including Russian (1920), Dutch (1921), Danish (1922), Hungarian (1925), Japanese (1930) and Spanish (1932).

Otto Rühle (1928) — Karl Marx. His Life and Work

Karl Marx: Leben und Werk was written by Otto Rühle and first published in German in 1928. An English translation by Eden and Cedar Paul was published under the title Karl Marx. His Life and Work (419 pages). The work was republished several times, also as an e-book. It was reviewed several times in 1929 and later, most of the time with a generally positive tone.

Boris Nicolaievsky (1933) — Marx: Man and Fighter

Marx: Man and Fighter is a biography by Boris Nicolaievsky, first published in German in 1933. It was translated into English by Otto Mänchen-Helfen and published in 1936. Some subsequent English editions restore the notes, appendices, and bibliography omitted from the first English edition. This biography focuses largely on Marx as a revolutionary, not as a philosopher or social scientist/economist. In the 'Foreword' we find the memorable sentence: "Perhaps one Socialist in a thousand has ever read any of Marx's economic writings, and of a thousand anti-Marxists not even one."

This biography was reviewed several times, for instance by Harold Lasswell in 1937, and in 1976, after the 1973 republication, by Duncan Hallas.

Isaiah Berlin (1939) — Karl Marx: His Life and Environment

Main article: Karl Marx: His Life and Environment

Karl Marx: His Life and Environment is a 1939 biography of Karl Marx by Isaiah Berlin, in which Berlin argues that Marx's system of thought depends upon indefensible metaphysical presuppositions.

David McLellan (1973) — Karl Marx: His Life and Thought

Main article: Karl Marx: His Life and Thought

Karl Marx: His Life and Thought is a 1973 biography of Karl Marx by political scientist David McLellan. The work was republished as Karl Marx: A Biography in 1995.

Maximilien Rubel (1975) — Marx without Myth

Marx Without Myth: A Chronological Study of his Life and Work by Maximilien Rubel

Rolf Hosfeld (2009) — Karl Marx: An intellectual biography

Karl Marx: An intellectual biography was written by Rolf Hosfeld and first published in German in 2009 as Die Geister, die er rief: eine neue Karl-Marx-Biographie. The translation in English by Bernard Heise appeared in 2013.

Francis Wheen (2010) — Karl Marx

External videos
Booknotes interview with Wheen on Karl Marx: A Life, 25 June 2000, C-SPAN

Karl Marx is a 2010 biography by journalist Francis Wheen.

Jonathan Sperber (2013) — Karl Marx: A Nineteenth Century Life

Karl Marx: A Nineteenth Century Life is a 2013 biography of Karl Marx by Jonathan Sperber.

Gareth Stedman-Jones (2016) — Karl Marx: Greatness and Illusion

Karl Marx: Greatness and Illusion is a 2016 biography of Karl Marx by British historian Gareth Stedman-Jones.

Michael Heinrich (2018) — Karl Marx and the Birth of Modern Society

Karl Marx and the Birth of Modern Society: The Life of Marx and the Development of His Work. Volume I: 1818-1841 is a 2019 (German edition 2018) biography by German political scientist Michael Heinrich.

Minor works

• Friedrich Engels (1892) — Karl Marx
• Keir Hardie (1910) — Marx: The Man and His Message
• Vladimir Lenin (1914) — Karl Marx. A Brief Biographical Sketch With an Exposition of Marxism
• Karl Korsch (1938) — Karl Marx. London: Chapman & Hall / New York: John Wiley & Sons. Originally published as part of a series "Modern Sociologists". Reissued 1963. Published in original German version 1967. Translated in Italian, French, Spanish and Greek. Many times reissued.
• Heinrich Gemkow (1968) — Karl Marx
• Maximilien Rubel (1980) — Marx, Life and Works. New York: Macmillan.

Sources

• Segrillo, Angelo (March 2019). "Two Centuries of Karl Marx Biographies: An Overview" (PDF). LEA Working Paper Series (4). Sao Paulo: Laboratório de Estudos da Ásia (LEA), History Department, University of São Paulo.

See also

• Karl Marx
• Karl Marx in film