Love and Capitol: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution

Yesterday morning, Steve dropped me off at IU so I could attend my two-hour class on Marxism and The Communist Manifesto. I may have mentioned this before, so please forgive me if I have, but I am taking an intensive, six-week one-credit course on Marxism and The Communist Manifesto. It's interesting. We learned about the concepts of alienation and class consciousness. I am also reading a book called Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution. Mary Gabriel expertly spins a ninteeth-century yarn about Karl Marx, Marxism, and The Communist Manifesto, revolution, etc., but she also adds another element to the revolutionary mix: his personal life with Jenny(wife), Lenchen(housekeeper and lover), and his children. From my previous readings and research, I did not know a lot about Jenny, and the more I read and learned about her, the more I believe that she received the short end of the deal. Marx himself admitted as much in letters to Engels, his cohort. It was wise of Mary Gabriel to focus on the personal life, since there is not a lot of information about Jenny Marx. The text of the tome is five hundred ninety-four pages, with acknowledgements, biblography, character list, index, introduction, maps, political timeline, preface, and prologue. Mary Gabriel attention to detail and thoroughness would impress most readers.

Comments

Kaiju said…
History is fun!

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