Marx on Suicide (Psychosocial Issues) - Softcover

Marx, Karl

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0810116383 ISBN 13: 9780810116382

Publisher: Northwestern University Press, 1999

Synopsis

In 1864 - two years before the publication of The Communist Manifesto and 21 years before the publication of Das Kapital - Karl Marx published an essay titled Peuchet on Suicide. The essay was originally presented as a translation of excerpts from the memoirs of Jacques Peuchet (1758-1830), a leading French police administrator, economist and statistician. Plaut and Anderson reveal that Marx's Peuchet on Suicide is not a straightforward translation, but is an edited version in which Marx adds passages of his own, altering the emphasis of the text from a moral and psychological focus to a profoundly social one. Thus, the essay very strongly reflects Marx's own position on this controversial subject. Sociologist Kevin Anderson provides an extensive introduction situating the essay in the context of Marx's work, especially that on gender; Plaut's essay focuses on the psychological aspects of the work, in particular contrasting Marx's thoughts on suicide with those of Freud and Durkheim.

About this title

About the Author

Karl Marx (1818-1883) was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the establishment of the social sciences and the development of the socialist movement.

Review

"Plaut and Anderson's book represents a significant contribution to and expansion of sociologists' understanding of Marx's support for women's liberation. . . . Marx's views regarding women's oppression in the bourgeois family are made poignantly clear." --Social Pathology


"This essay, expertly retranslated and intelligently introduced, confirms how far Marx's interests ranged beyond the problems of the proletariat and sheds new light on the young Marx—not the least on the self-aggressiveness of his own emotional life."

—Louis Dupré, Yale University


"This unknown fragment of early Marx provides occasion for three engaging contributions: an introduction to Peuchet's pioneering text on suicide; provocative glosses on issues of self-destructiveness in Marx's biography; and a knowing recovery of Marx's views on gender and the family. Fascinating."

—Donald N. Levine, University of Chicago

Edition details

• Publisher: Northwestern University Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0810116383
• ISBN 13: 9780810116382
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 147
• Editor: Plaut Eric A.