Marxism, Religion and Ideology
As austerity measures are put into place the world over and global restructuring is acknowledged by all as an attempt to bolster the economic system that led to the crash, there is a great need to come to grips with the economic, political and philosophical legacy of Marx. Of particular interest are Marxs analyses of alienation and the cycles of boom and bust thought to be integral to the functioning of capitalism. Moreover, as the Cold War drifts into the history books, it is possible to reconsider the lasting impact of Marxs analyses without the shadows cast by the Soviet version of communism. Equally, though, scholars are increasingly turning to Marx for insight into the rise of religion and the corresponding demise of political ideologies that seems to mark the contemporary age. Are we witnessing the return of Marx?
Few scholars have done as much to tease out the intricacies of Marx, ideology and religion and their overlapping concerns as the eminent writer and Marx biographer, Professor David McLellan. This book brings together a group of internationally renowned academics to reflect upon, develop and criticise McLellans analyses of these three themes with a view to contributing more broadly to scholarly debates in these fields. This exciting and timely analysis will be of interest to scholars of political theory, the history of political thought (including historical methodology), Marx and Marxism, sociology of knowledge (particularly in relation to discussions of ideology), religion and theology more widely.
David Bates is Principal Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Canterbury Christ Church University, U.K. He is the Director of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in Politics and International Relations. His academic interests are focused primarily in the area of contemporary radical political thought.
Iain MacKenzie is Senior Lecturer in Politics and the Co-Director of the Centre for Critical Thought at the University of Kent, U.K. His research is situated within the critical tradition of modern European thought.
Sean Sayers is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kent, U.K. He has written extensively on topics of Hegelian and Marxist philosophy and in the areas of social philosophy, ethics, theory of knowledge, metaphysics and logic. He has also written on Freud and psychoanalysis and is currently working on issues in aesthetics.
At a time when Pope Francis at one extreme and ISIS on the other have forced us to reconsider our views on what religion is and can be, Marxs easily misinterpreted writings on religion deserve another and, this time, closer reading. And who better to guide us through them than the greatest living scholar on this subject, David McLellan, with the kind of balanced critical help he receives from the impressive group of authors represented in this volume? HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
Professor Bertell Ollman, Department of Politics, NYU, Author of Alienation: Marxs Conception of Man in Capitalist Society, Dialectical Investigations and Dance of the Dialectic: Steps in Marxs Method
Routledge Studies in Social and Political Thought
Hayek and After
Hayekian Liberalism as a Research Programme
Jeremy Shearmur
Conflicts in Social Science
Edited by Anton van Harskamp
Political Thought of Andr Gorz
Adrian Little
Corruption, Capitalism and Democracy
John Girling
Freedom and Culture in Western Society
Hans Blokland
Freedom in Economics
New Perspectives in Normative Analysis
Edited by Jean-Francois Laslier, Marc Fleurbaey, Nicolas Gravel and Alain Trannoy
Against Politics
On Government, Anarchy and Order
Anthony de Jasay
Max Weber and Michel Foucault
Parallel Life Works
Arpad Szakolczai
The Political Economy of Civil Society and Human Rights
G.B. Madison
On Durkheims Elementary Forms of Religious Life
Edited by W.S.F. Pickering, W. Watts Miller and N.J. Allen
Classical Individualism
The Supreme Importance of Each Human Being
Tibor R. Machan
The Age of Reasons
Quixotism, Sentimentalism and Political Economy in Eighteenth-Century Britain
Wendy Motooka
Individualism in Modern Thought
From Adam Smith to Hayek
Lorenzo Infantino
Property and Power in Social Theory
A Study in Intellectual Rivalry
Dick Pels
Wittgenstein and the Idea of a Critical Social Theory
A Critique of Giddens, Habermas and Bhaskar
Nigel Pleasants
Marxism and Human Nature
Sean Sayers
Goffman and Social Organization
Studies in a Sociological Legacy
Edited by Greg Smith
Situating Hayek
Phenomenology and the Neo-Liberal Project
Mark J. Smith
The Reading of Theoretical Texts
Peter Ekegren
The Nature of Capital Marx after Foucault
Richard Marsden
The Age of Chance
Gambling in Western Culture
Gerda Reith
Reflexive Historical Sociology
Arpad Szakolczai
Durkheim and Representations
Edited by W.S.F. Pickering
The Social and Political Thought of Noam Chomsky
Alison Edgley
Hayeks Liberalism and Its Origins
His Idea of Spontaneous Order and the Scottish Enlightenment
Christina Petsoulas
Metaphor and the Dynamics of Knowledge
Sabine Maasen and Peter Weingart
Living with Markets
Jeremy Shearmur
Durkheims Suicide
A Century of Research and Debate Edited by W.S.F. Pickering and Geoffrey Walford
Post-Marxism
An Intellectual History
Stuart Sim
The Intellectual as Stranger
Studies in Spokespersonship
Dick Pels
Hermeneutic Dialogue and Social Science
A Critique of Gadamer and Habermas
Austin Harrington
Methodological Individualism
Background, History and Meaning
Lars Udehn
John Stuart Mill and Freedom of Expression
The Genesis of a Theory
K.C. ORourke
The Politics of Atrocity and Reconciliation
From Terror to Trauma
Michael Humphrey
Marx and Wittgenstein
Knowledge, Morality, Politics
Edited by Gavin Kitching and Nigel Pleasants
The Genesis of Modernity
Arpad Szakolczai
Ignorance and Liberty
Lorenzo Infantino
Deleuze, Marx and Politics
Nicholas Thoburn
The Structure of Social Theory
Anthony King
Adorno, Habermas and the Search for a Rational Society
Deborah Cook
Tocquevilles Moral and Political Thought
New Liberalism
M.R.R. Ossewaarde
Adam Smiths Political Philosophy
The Invisible Hand and Spontaneous Order
