Biographical note:

Daniel Bensaïd (1946–2010) taught philosophy at the University of Paris VIII, and was the author of books on Marxism, Walter Benjamin, the French Revolution and Joan of Arc. The Marxists’ Internet Archive has a <a href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/bensaid/obits/index.htm">list of obituaries</a>.

Gregory Elliott is a member of the editorial collective of Radical Philosophy and author of Althusser: The Detour of Theory and Labourism and the English Genius: The Strange Decay of Labour England?.

Country of final manufacture:

US

Main description:

The end of Soviet Socialism signalled to some observers that the ghost of Marx had finally been laid to rest. But history’s refusal to grind to a halt and the global credit crisis that began in 2008 have rekindled interest in capitalism’s most persistent critic.

Written during the mid-nineties, a period of Western complacency and neo-liberal reaction, Marx for Our Times is a critical reading of dialectical materialism as a method of resistance. Without denying the contradictory character of Marx’s thought, and with a sensitivity to the plurality of theories it has inspired, Daniel Bensaid sets out to discover what in Marx remains dynamic and relevant in our era of accelerating economic change.

Marx’s theory emerges, not as a doctrinal system, but as an intellectual tool of social struggle and global transformation in a world where capital continues to dominate social relations.

Review quote:

“Marx for Our Times is a sign of the vitality of heterodox Marxist thought at a time when the legitimacy of capitalism is once again coming under challenge.”—Alex Callinicos

“The result of a long process of research, this book offers us an analysis of the thought of Marx and of its relevance which should be considered as a new landmark, and which opens up new perspectives and polemics which will no doubt continue to live on for some time.”—Le Monde