Georg Lukács

-- Morris Dickstein, Queens College

History and Class Consciousness was the most important of Georg Lukács's early theoretical writings, published in Germany in 1923. The subject of high praise and passionate criticism, it had a major impact on all the Marxist debates that followed, introducing key new concepts such as 'totality', 'reification' and 'imputed class consciousness'. This centenary edition, with a new preface by Michael Löwy, comprises a series of essays exploring, among other topics, the definition of orthodox Marxism, the question of legality and illegality, Rosa Luxemburg as a Marxist, the changing function of historic Marxism, and the substantiation and consciousness of the proletariat. This classic book has influenced many key philosophers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including Adorno, Debord, Heidegger, Lefebvre, Merleau-Ponty and Zizek, and it can lay claim to being one of the cornerstones of contemporary thought.

History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics (German: Geschichte und Klassenbewu tsein: Studien ber marxistische Dialektik) is a 1923 book by the Hungarian philosopher Gy rgy Luk cs, in which Luk cs re-emphasizes Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's influence on Karl Marx, analyses the concept of class consciousness, and attempts a philosophical justification of Bolshevism. History and Class Consciousness, which helped to create Western Marxism, is the book for which Luk cs is best known, and some of his pronouncements have become famous. Nevertheless, History and Class Consciousness was condemned in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and Luk cs later repudiated its ideas, and came to believe that in it he had confused Hegel's concept of alienation with that of Marx. It has been suggested that the concept of reification as employed in Martin Heidegger's Being and Time (1927) shows the strong influence of History and Class Consciousness, though such a relationship remains disputed. (wikipedia.org)

A classic of Western Marxism, The Destruction of Reason is Georg Lukács's trenchant criticism of German philosophy after Marx and the role it played in the rise of National Socialism. Originally published in 1952, the book is a sustained and detailed polemic against post-Hegelian German philosophy and sociology from Kierkegaard to Heidegger. The Destruction of Reason is unsparing in its contention that with almost no exceptions, the post-Hegelian tradition prepared the ground fascist thought. In this, the main culprits are Friedrich Nietzsche and Martín Heidegger who are accused, in turn, of introducing irrationalism into social and philosophical thought, pronounced antagonism to the idea of progress in history, an aristocratic view of the "masses," and, consequently, hostility to socialism, which in its classic expressions are movements for popular democracy-especially, but not exclusively, the expropriation of most private property in terms of material production. The Destruction of Reason remains one of Lukács's most controversial, albeit little read, books. This new edition, featuring an historical introduction by Enzo Traverso, will finally see this classic come back in to print.

No other country and no other period has produced a tradition of major aesthetic debate to compare with that which unfolded in German culture from the 1930s to the 1950s. In Aesthetics and Politics the key texts of the great Marxist controversies over literature and art during these years are assembled in a single volume. They do not form a disparate collection but a continuous, interlinked debate between thinkers who have become giants of twentieth-century intellectual history.

History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics (German: Geschichte und Klassenbewu tsein: Studien ber marxistische Dialektik) is a 1923 book by the Hungarian philosopher Gy rgy Luk cs, in which Luk cs re-emphasizes Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's influence on Karl Marx, analyses the concept of class consciousness, and attempts a philosophical justification of Bolshevism. History and Class Consciousness, which helped to create Western Marxism, is the book for which Luk cs is best known, and some of his pronouncements have become famous. Nevertheless, History and Class Consciousness was condemned in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and Luk cs later repudiated its ideas, and came to believe that in it he had confused Hegel's concept of alienation with that of Marx. It has been suggested that the concept of reification as employed in Martin Heidegger's Being and Time (1927) shows the strong influence of History and Class Consciousness, though such a relationship remains disputed. (wikipedia.org)

History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics (German: Geschichte und Klassenbewu tsein: Studien ber marxistische Dialektik) is a 1923 book by the Hungarian philosopher Gy rgy Luk cs, in which Luk cs re-emphasizes Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's influence on Karl Marx, analyses the concept of class consciousness, and attempts a philosophical justification of Bolshevism. History and Class Consciousness, which helped to create Western Marxism, is the book for which Luk cs is best known, and some of his pronouncements have become famous. Nevertheless, History and Class Consciousness was condemned in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and Luk cs later repudiated its ideas, and came to believe that in it he had confused Hegel's concept of alienation with that of Marx. It has been suggested that the concept of reification as employed in Martin Heidegger's Being and Time (1927) shows the strong influence of History and Class Consciousness, though such a relationship remains disputed. (wikipedia.org)

Die Theorie des Romans: Ein geschichtsphilosophischer Versuch �����ber die Formen der gro�����en Epik (1920) von Georg Luk�����cs ist ein bahnbrechendes Werk der literarischen Theorie. In diesem Buch untersucht Luk�����cs die Geschichte des Romans und seine Beziehung zur Gesellschaft und zum Individuum. Er argumentiert, dass der Roman eine einzigartige Form der Literatur ist, die es dem Autor erm������glicht, die sozialen und psychologischen Realit�����ten der Welt zu erforschen. Luk�����cs beginnt mit einer Diskussion �����ber die epische Form und ihre Bedeutung in der Geschichte der Literatur. Er betont, dass der Roman eine neue Art von Epik darstellt, die sich von fr�����heren Formen unterscheidet. Der Roman ist nicht nur eine Geschichte, sondern auch eine Darstellung der sozialen und psychologischen Realit�����ten der Welt. Luk�����cs untersucht dann die Beziehung zwischen dem Roman und der Gesellschaft. Er argumentiert, dass der Roman eine Reflexion der Gesellschaft ist und dass die gro�����en Romane der Geschichte eine kritische Analyse der sozialen Strukturen und der menschlichen Natur darstellen. Der Roman ist ein Mittel, um die Welt zu verstehen und zu ver�����ndern. Schlie�����lich untersucht Luk�����cs die Beziehung zwischen dem Roman und dem Individuum. Er betont, dass der Roman eine einzigartige M������glichkeit bietet, die menschliche Psyche zu erforschen und zu verstehen. Die gro�����en Romane der Geschichte sind Charakterstudien, die uns helfen, die menschliche Natur zu verstehen. Die Theorie des Romans: Ein geschichtsphilosophischer Versuch �����ber die Formen der gro�����en Epik (1920) ist ein wichtiger Beitrag zur literarischen Theorie und hat einen gro�����en Einfluss auf die Entwicklung der modernen Literaturkritik gehabt. Es ist ein Muss f�����r jeden, der sich f�����r die Geschichte des Romans und seine Bedeutung f�����r die Gesellschaft und das Individuum interessiert. This Is A New Release Of The Original 1920 Edition. This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.

Tactics and Ethics collects Georg Lukács's articles from the most politically active time of his life, a period encompassing his stint as deputy commissar of education in the Hungarian Soviet Republic. Including his famed essay on parliamentarianism-which earned Lukács the respectful yet severe criticism of Lenin-this book is a treasure chest of valuable insights from one of history's great political philosophers.

Gyorgy Lukacs was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher, writer, and literary critic who shaped mainstream European Communist thought. Soul and Form was his first book, published in 1910, and it established his reputation, treating questions of linguistic expressivity and literary style in the works of Plato, Kierkegaard, Novalis, Sterne, and others. By isolating the formal techniques these thinkers developed, Lukacs laid the groundwork for his later work in Marxist aesthetics, a field that introduced the historical and political implications of text. For this centennial edition, John T. Sanders and Katie Terezakis add a dialogue entitled "On Poverty of Spirit," which Lukacs wrote at the time of Soul and Form, and an introduction by Judith Butler, which compares Lukacs's key claims to his later work and subsequent movements in literary theory and criticism. In an afterword, Terezakis continues to trace the Lukacsian system within his writing and other fields. These essays explore problems of alienation and isolation and the curative quality of aesthetic form, which communicates both individuality and a shared human condition. They investigate the elements that give rise to form, the history that form implies, and the historicity that form embodies. Taken together, they showcase the breakdown, in modern times, of an objective aesthetics, and the rise of a new art born from lived experience.

Gyorgy Lukacs was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher, writer, and literary critic who shaped mainstream European Communist thought. Soul and Form was his first book, published in 1910, and it established his reputation, treating questions of linguistic expressivity and literary style in the works of Plato, Kierkegaard, Novalis, Sterne, and others. By isolating the formal techniques these thinkers developed, Lukacs laid the groundwork for his later work in Marxist aesthetics, a field that introduced the historical and political implications of text. For this centennial edition, John T. Sanders and Katie Terezakis add a dialogue entitled "On Poverty of Spirit," which Lukacs wrote at the time of Soul and Form, and an introduction by Judith Butler, which compares Lukacs's key claims to his later work and subsequent movements in literary theory and criticism. In an afterword, Terezakis continues to trace the Lukacsian system within his writing and other fields. These essays explore problems of alienation and isolation and the curative quality of aesthetic form, which communicates both individuality and a shared human condition. They investigate the elements that give rise to form, the history that form implies, and the historicity that form embodies. Taken together, they showcase the breakdown, in modern times, of an objective aesthetics, and the rise of a new art born from lived experience.