Tag: Famous Figure

Karl Marx as a Young Journalist

By Rolf Hosfeld

HosfeldKarl

Excerpted by Karl Marx: An Intellectual Biography by Rolf Hosfeld, Translated from the German by Bernard Heise

Karl Marx was born May 5, 1818. As a young man he was a journalist and an editor for Rheinische Zeitung, a liberal-socialist newspaper published in Germany. The paper was previously edited by Adolf Friedrich Rutenberg, who favored opinionated feuilletons, before Marx replaced him and gained recognition for his practical, evidence-based approach.

Moses Hess was the first communist Karl Marx personally encountered. Both were from the Rhineland, came from bourgeois families, and were under the influence of Hegel’s philosophy. Marx made an “impos­ing impression” on Hess upon their first acquaintance in Septem­ber 1841. After their initial encounter Hess had the sense of having met the “greatest, perhaps the only real philosopher now living,” one who would soon—Hess was referring here to the lecture halls of Bonn Univer­sity—“draw upon him the eyes of Germany.”
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Series Spotlight: Shakespeare &

Image result for william shakespeareWidely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the English language and the world’s greatest dramatist, William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright and actor. Shakespeare’s plays being translated in over 50 languages and performed across the globe for audiences of all ages. Shakespeare was also an actor and the creator of the Globe Theatre, a historical theatre, and company that is visited by hundreds of thousands of tourists every year.

In honor of Shakespeare’s birthday, we are delighted to showcase our growing book series, SHAKESPEARE &, exploring Shakespeare and his work outside the lens of traditional literary studies. By intersecting the worlds beyond fiction and poetry with those disciplines outside of literature and drama, this series offers nuanced approaches that reveal a more diverse and complex legacy left by Shakespeare.

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Viktor Frankl: 75 years after the liberation of Auschwitz

TIMOTHY E. PYTELL

The recent United Nations General Assembly declaration that the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz – January 27 – be designated International Holocaust Remembrance Day reflects the reality that the Holocaust has become a touchstone in global memory. Given the magnitude of the “unprecendented” destruction, this is not surprising. However, the conflation of the Holocaust with Auschwitz also distorts our understanding. For example, although Auschwitz is the culmination of the Holocaust, by the time the gas chambers came onto line at Auschwitz in April of 1943 three quarters of the Jews killed in the Holocaust were already dead. The vast majority of the Soviet and Polish Jews were killed east of the Molotov-Ribbentrop line and often by bullets. In Timothy Snyder’s words “Auschwitz is the coda to the death fugue.” (Snyder Bloodlands p. 383).

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William Shakespeare

Image result for william shakespeareWidely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the English language and the world’s greatest dramatist, William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright and actor. Shakespeare’s plays being translated in over 50 languages and performed across the globe for audiences of all ages. Shakespeare was also an actor and the creator of the Globe Theatre, a historical theatre, and company that is visited by hundreds of thousands of tourists every year.

In recognition of Shakespeare’s birth and death, Berghahn Journals would like to offer FULL ACCESS to Critical Survey* until May 7! To access, use the code Shakespeare19. View redemption instructions.
We are also delighted to announce publication of NEW Berghahn series: Shakespeare &

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Nelson Mandela’s Mission

Nelson Mandela was born on July 18, 1918. Mandela was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, politician, and philanthropist, who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the country’s first black head of state and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election. In 1962, he was arrested for conspiring to overthrow the state and sentenced to life imprisonment in the Rivonia Trial. Mandela served 27 years in prison, split between Robben Island, Pollsmoor Prison, and Victor Verster Prison.
This excerpt was adapted from The Decolonial Mandela: Peace, Justice and the Politics of Life by Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni. Chapter 1 of this book is currently available online for free.  Continue reading “Nelson Mandela’s Mission” →

David Émile Durkheim, Father of Mind

Commonly credited as the father of modern sociology, David Émile Durkheim (born on April 15, 1858) drew on the philosophies of Karl Marx and Auguste Compte to create his own. In turn, his philosophy inspired Marcel Mauss, Claude Lévi-Strauss, and Michel Foucault, among many others, including Alexander Tristan Riley, W.S.F. Pickering, and William Watts Miller, whose edited collection Durkheim, the Durkheimians, and the Arts is now available in paperback. Below, Riley shares what brought him to the study of Durkheim, a prediction of the collection’s reception, and what he would ask the philosopher if given the chance. 

 

Durkheim and the ArtsBerghahn Books: What drew you to the study of David Émile Durkheim?

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Why Remember Margaret Mead?

Photo from Blackberry Winter: My Earlier Years with the caption "In Vaitogi: in Samoan dress, with Fa'amotu."
Photo from Blackberry Winter: My Earlier Years with the caption “In Vaitogi: in Samoan dress, with Fa’amotu.”

 

(Originally Published 12/14/2015)

To commemorate Margaret Mead’s birthday this month, we’re honored to share a short piece from her daughter, Mary Catherine Bateson. Bateson is an anthropologist and the author of many books, including Composing a Life. As she notes below, 2015 marks the 91st anniversary of Mead’s trip to Samoa in 1925, when Mead did her fieldwork resulting in the seminal book Coming of Age in Samoa. Working closely with Mary Catherine Bateson and also Professor William O. Beeman, Berghahn Books republished six volumes of Mead’s writing, with new introductions, in the early 2000’s.

We’re pleased to announce new discounted prices on all titles in the Margaret Mead: The Study of Contemporary Western Culture book series, and we’re offering FREE access to this chapter titled Talks with Social Scientists: Margaret Mead on What is a Culture? What is a Civilization? from Studying Contemporary Western Society for a limited time.

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Honoring Polish Filmmaker Andrzej Wajda

 

Andrzej Wajda

Andrzej Wajda, Polish film and theatre director, passed away on October 9, 2016.

Recipient of an Honorary Oscar and the Palme d’Or, he was a prominent member of the “Polish Film School“. He was known especially for his trilogy of war films consisting of A Generation (1954), Kanał (1956) and Ashes and Diamonds (1958).

Four of his films have been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film: The Promised Land (1975), The Maids of Wilko (1979), Man of Iron (1981) and Katyń (2007).

To celebrate Wajda and his contributions to Polish Cinema, we’ve highlighted relevant titles below.
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Today In History

Born on July 30, 1863, Henry Ford was an American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production. Although Ford did not invent the automobile or the assembly line, he developed and manufactured the models of automobiles that converted its use from an expensive curiosity into a practical transport that middle class Americans could afford. His global vision resulted in many technical and business innovations which greatly impacted the context of the twentieth century.

 

“Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.” – Henry Ford

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Berghahn is happy to present some relevant titles in the area of transportation and industrial development:

 

forthcoming!

ATLANTIC AUTOMOBILISM
The Emergence and Persistence of the Car, 1895-1940
Gijs Mom

Volume 1, Explorations in Mobility Series

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Marx is the New Black

HosfeldKarlWere he still alive, the philosopher behind The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital would be celebrating his 196th birthday today.

Marx has made a comeback recently, with new books on his life and ideas popping up more frequently, and a new wave of “Millennial Marxists” taking to social media to discuss the original socialist’s ideas in a more modern light.

In honor of the undeniable influence Karl Marx has had on economic and political discourse over the years, we invite you to take a look at our intellectual biography of the philosopher himself.

 

 

Here’s what the critics are saying about Karl Marx: An Intellectual Biography by Rolf Hosfeld:

“…an elegant compact study [that] explores Marx’s ideas in all their messy complexity.” —Times Literary Supplement

“This 200 page compendium is a deftly written biography offering an informed and informative presentation of Marx’s turbulent personal and professional life. A seminal work of impressive scholarship, [this book] is enhanced by the inclusion of an extensive bibliography making it an especially useful and highly recommended contribution to academic library reference collections and Marxist Studies supplemental reading lists.” —The Midwest Book Review

“This book is a delightful gain: biography, theory, revolutionary history, modern history—altogether convincing and gripping. The lively portrait of a brilliant, eternally radical, and strictly speaking rather apolitical, philosopher is illustrated here by Rolf Hosfeld—A great achievement.” —DeutschlandRadio

 

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