Böcker av Louis Althusser

A classic philosophical study on how political and cultural ideas come to dominate.

A classic work of Marxist analysis, available unabridged for the first timeOriginally published in 1965, Reading Capital is a landmark of French thought and radical theory, reconstructing Western Marxism from its foundations. Louis Althusser, the French Marxist philosopher, maintained that Marx's project could only be revived if its scientific and revolutionary novelty was thoroughly divested of all traces of humanism, idealism, Hegelianism and historicism. In order to complete this critical rereading, Althusser and his students at the cole normale superieure ran a seminar on Capital, re-examining its arguments, strengths and weaknesses in detail, and it was out of those discussions that this book was born. Previously only available in English in highly abridged form, this edition, appearing fifty years after its original publication in France, restores chapters by Roger Establet, Pierre Macherey and Jacques Ranciere. It includes a major new introduction by tienne Balibar.

"A leading Marxist philosopher lays out his practical vision for political struggle"--

The renowned French theorist dissects the leading Enlightenment philosopher

Originally published: Ecrits sur l'histoire, 1963-1986. Paris: Humensis, 2018.

Essays in Self-Criticism contains all of Louis Althusser's work from the 1970s. It is composed of three texts, each of which in a different way presents elements of self-criticism. The first is Althusser's extended reply to the English philosopher John Lewis. In it he for the first time discusses the problem of the political causes of Stalinism, which he argues should be seen as the consequence of a long tradition of economism within the Second and Third Internationals. The second major essay, written soon afterwards, sets out Althusser's critical assessment of his own philosophical work in the 60's, including the extent and limits of his 'flirtation' with structuralism. The book ends with an autobiographical study of Althusser's intellectual development from 1945 to 1975, given on the occasion of his reception of a doctorate at the University of Picardy. The political thought of the 'new' Althusser is presented to English readers in a special introduction by his pupil Grahame Lock, which considers at length the lessons it sees in Soviet experience for contemporary communism.

Louis Althusser's renowned short text ';Ideology andIdeological State Apparatuses' radically transformed theconcept of the subject, the understanding of the stateand even the very frameworks of cultural, political andliterary theory. The text has influenced thinkers such asJudith Butler, Ernesto Laclau and Slavoj iek.The piece is, in fact, an extract from a much longer book,On the Reproduction of Capitalism, until now unavailablein English. Its publication makes possible a reappraisalof seminal Althusserian texts already available in English,their place in Althusser's oeuvre and the relevance ofhis ideas for contemporary theory. On the Reproductionof Capitalism develops Althusser's conception of historicalmaterialism, outlining the conditions of reproductionin capitalist society and the revolutionary struggle forits overthrow. Written in the afterglow of May 1968, the text addressesa question that continues to haunt us today: in a societythat proclaims its attachment to the ideals of liberty andequality, why do we witness the ever-renewed reproductionof relations of domination? Both a conceptuallyinnovative text and a key theoretical tool for activists,On the Reproduction of Capitalism is an essential additionto the corpus of the twentieth-century Left.

A collection of essays by the leading French thinker

Provides appraisals of major writers.

In the late 1970s and 1980s, Louis Althusser endured a period of mental instability during which he murdered his wife and was committed to a psychiatric hospital. Spanning this period, this fourth volume of political and philosophical writings reveals his wrestling with a series of theoretical problems to produce some of his work.