Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, and the New International

Specters of Marx is a major new book from the renowned French philosopher Jacques Derrida. It represents his first important statement on Marx and his definitive entry into social and political philosophy.

"Specter" is the first noun one reads in The Manifesto of the Communist Party. But that's just the beginning. Once you start to notice them, there is no counting all the ghosts, spirits, specters and spooks that crowd Marx's text. If they are to count for something, however, one must question the spectropoetics that Marx allowed to invade his discourse. In Specters of Marx, Derrida undertakes this task within the context of a critique of the new dogmatism and "new world order" that have proclaimed the death of Marxism and of Marx.

Jacques Derrida is Directeur d'Etudes, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris. He is well known to English-language readers for such works as Of Grammatology, Spurs, The Post Card, and Cinders. Acts of Literature, a collection of his essays, is available from Routledge.