This book considers Karl Marx¿s ideas in relation to the social and political context in which he lived and wrote. It emphasizes both the continuity of his commitment to the cause of full human emancipation, and the role of his critique of political economy in conceiving history to be the history of class struggles. The book follows his developing ideas from before he encountered political economy, through the politics of 1848 and the Bonapartist ¿farce,¿, the maturation of the critique of political economy in the Grundrisse and Capital, and his engagement with the politics of the First International and the legacy of the Paris Commune. Notwithstanding errors in historical judgment largely reflecting the influence of dominant liberal historiography, Marx laid the foundations for a new social theory premised upon the historical consequences of alienation and the potential for human freedom.

George C. Comninel is Professor of Political Theory in the Department of Politics at York University, Canada. He is the author of Rethinking the French Revolution: Marxism and the Revisionist Challenge (1987), as well as articles and chapters on feudalism, the politics of the French Revolution, and Marx's thought.

1. Introduction.- 2. Approaching Marx's Theory.- 3. Emancipation in Marx's Early Work.- 4. The Developing Conception of Historical Materialism.- 5. Problems of
The German Ideology
.- 6.
The German Ideology
vs. Historical Materialism.- 7.  The Puzzle of the
Manifesto of the Communist Party
.- 8. Debating Marx's Conception of Class in History.- 9. Historical Materialism and the Specificity of Capitalism.- 10. Capital as a Social Relation.- 11.
Capital
and Historical Materialism.- 12. Marx and the Politics of the First International.- 13. Marx and Social Theory.