Product Description

A dazzling biography of a life rich in comedy and Victorian melodrama, in grand plots and dire straits: Karl Marx proves to be wholly a man of our times.

The history of the 20th century is Marx's legacy. Not since Jesus Christ has an obscure pauper inspired such global devotion - or been so calamitously misinterpreted. The end of the century is a good moment to strip away the mythology and try to rediscover Marx the man. There have been many thousands of books on Marxism, but almost all are written by academics and zealots for whom it is a near blaspemy to treat him as a figure of flesh and blood. In the past few years there have been excellent and successful biographies of many eminent Victorians and yet the most influential of them has remained untouched. In this book Francis Wheen will, for the first time, present Marx the man in all his brilliance and frailty - as a poverty-stricken Prussian emigre who became a middle-class English gentleman; as an angry agitator who spent much of his adult life in scholarly silence in the British Museum Reading Room; as a gregarious and convivial host who fell out with almost all his friends; as a devoted family man who impregnated his housemaid; as a deeply earnest philosopoher who loved drink, cigars and jokes.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #39398 in Books
• Published on: 2000-08-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Karl Marx, whose influence on modern times has been compared to that of Jesus Christ, spent most of his lifetime in obscurity. Penniless, exiled in London, estranged from relations and on the run from most of the police forces of Europe, his ambitions as a revolutionary were frequently thwarted and his major writings on politics and economics remained unpublished (in some cases until after the Second World War). He has not lacked biographers, but even the most distinguished have been more interested in the evolution of his ideas than any other aspect of his life. Francis Wheen's fresh, lively and moving biography of Marx considers the whole man--brain, beard and the rest of his body. Unencumbered by ideological point-scoring, this is a very readable, humorous and sympathetic account. A Guardian columnist, Wheen has an ear for juicy gossip and an eye for original detail. Marx comes over as a hell-raising bohemian, an intellectual bully and a perceptive critic of capitalist chaos, but also a family man of Victorian conformity personally vetting his daughters' suitors, Victorian ailments (carbuncles above all) and Victorian weaknesses, notably alcohol, tobacco and, on occasion, his housekeeper. But there is great pathos, too, as Marx witnessed the deaths of four of his six children. For those readers who feel Marxism has given Marx a bad name, this is a rewarding and enlightening book. --Miles Taylor

Amazon.co.uk Review
Karl Marx, whose influence on modern times has been compared to that of Jesus Christ, spent most of his lifetime in obscurity. Penniless, exiled in London, estranged from relations and on the run from most of the police forces of Europe, his ambitions as a revolutionary were frequently thwarted and his major writings on politics and economics remained unpublished (in some cases until after the Second World War). He has not lacked biographers, but even the most distinguished have been more interested in the evolution of his ideas than any other aspect of his life. Francis Wheen's fresh, lively and moving biography of Marx considers the whole man--brain, beard and the rest of his body. Unencumbered by ideological point-scoring, this is a very readable, humorous and sympathetic account. A Guardian columnist, Wheen has an ear for juicy gossip and an eye for original detail. Marx comes over as a hell-raising bohemian, an intellectual bully and a perceptive critic of capitalist chaos, but also a family man of Victorian conformity (personally vetting his daughters' suitors), Victorian ailments (carbuncles above all) and Victorian weaknesses (notably alcohol, tobacco and, on occasion, his housekeeper). But there is great pathos, too, as Marx witnessed the deaths of four of his six children. For those readers who feel Marxism has given Marx a bad name, this is a rewarding and enlightening book. --Miles Taylor

Independent
A magnificently lively, compulsively readable book . . . Wheen's triumph' A.N.Wilson, Spectator 'Stunning ... witty, subtle and beautifully written ... Wheen's Karl is a warm, rumbustious, impulsive, irresponsible, bumbling giant with a big heart and a vast ego.'

Customer Reviews

A Humanising look at Charlie Marx
Karl Marx has often been described as one of the most evil men ever to have lived. Indeed, there is a book listed on amazon entitled "Was Karl Marx a Satanist?" Responsible for Stalin? For North Korea? This book paints a different picture. What Wheen has done here is to reveal the man behind the monster. From his yearly days at university filled with drinking and youthful discussion on philosophy in smoke filled rooms, to social agitator and someone disgusting by the inhumanity of capitalism and Prussian state dictatorship, and to a loving and doting father and husband in his mature years, Marx Comes across as throughly likable. Whether you are a fascist, a communist, a liberal, a socialist, a conservative or whatever label you attach to yourself, you will love this book. When I first read it, I wished that he were still alive so that we could go for a pint. Oh well, I still have this magnificent biography.

Excellent, but with a few flaws.
Francis Wheen's biography of Marx is excellent. It's witty, realistic, sympathetic, well written, easily read and thoroughly enjoyable - so read it.

Usually, Marx is caricatured as either a wild eyed revolutionary lunatic or a dry academic who spent his life in the British Museum. He was, of course, neither.

What is very clear from Wheen's book, is the fact that Marx was a practising revolutionary as well as a theorist. Marx would throw his energies into the waves of revolutionary political activity that occurred during the 1840's and again at the end of the 1860's/early 1870's. When these waves were defeated, Marx would retreat into theoretical study in order to learn the lessons and hone the theoretical understandings he hoped would enable the working class to liberate itself and, thus, humanity.

Unfortunately, I think Wheen adopts a rather mocking tone towards Marx's political activities which I think detracts from his biography.

Marx also comes out of Wheen's book as a human being with all the strengths and weaknesses present in all of us, complete with binge drinking and an illegitimate son, not at all the distorted figure at the centre of a Stalinist personality cult.

I had started reading 'Capital' and had just read the first three, apparently most difficult, chapters before feeling in need of a break by reading something else. One of my 'something elses' was Wheen's biography, which motivated me to go back to reading 'Capital'. It's a great introduction to Marx the man and to his ideas.

enjoyable, insightful
I previously knew nothing about Karl Marx except that he wrote the communist manifesto.

My preconceptions of the man, were fairly ignorant.
I always saw him as an extreamist who inspired terrible dictatorships.

I am now aware these regimes took Karl Marx's work out context.

Im in my 20's and trying to find out where i stand politically.

A communist, i am not. Right Wing, definately not.

A socialist within a capitalist society .. maybe

I have never given much thought to politics before, its all new food for thought.
This book was a pleasure to read, and it has been a great introduction to Karl Marx.
Its inspired me to now read Das Kapital also by francis Wheen, and then i will give the communist manifesto a go.