A World to Win: The Life and Works of Karl Marx

By Sven-Eric Liedman

This essential Karl Marx biography expertly weaves the complex personality of the legendary thinker through the turbulent passage of global history.
 
The first biography to give equal weight to both the work and life of Karl Marx, A World to Win follows Marx through childhood and student days, a difficult and sometimes tragic family life, his far-sighted journalism, and his enduring friendship and intellectual partnership with Friedrich Engels.

Building on the work of previous biographers, Liedman employs a commanding knowledge of the 19th century to create a definitive portrait of Marx and his vast contribution to the way the world understands itself. He shines a light on Marx’s influences, explains his political and intellectual interventions, and builds on the legacy of his thought. Liedman shows how Marx’s masterpiece, Capital, illuminates the essential logic of a system that drives dizzying wealth, grinding poverty, and awesome technological innovation to this day.

Compulsively readable and meticulously researched, A World to Win demonstrates that Marx’s work remains the bedrock for any true understanding of our political and economic condition, even two centuries after his death.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: May 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781786635075

Sven-Eric Liedman

Sven-Eric Liedman, Professor Emeritus of the history of ideas at the University of Gothenburg, has been reading and writing about Karl Marx for over fifty years. His textbook on political ideologies (originally titled From Plato to Lenin in 1972, rechristened From Plato to the War Against Terrorism in 2014) has been reprinted in fourteen editions.

Reviews for A World to Win

[stillatim · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Liedman begins by complaining that nobody has yet properly synthesized Marx's life and his works, taking swipes at big, recent biographies like Sperber's and Stedman-Jones'... and then proceeds to not synthesize the life and works in any interesting way. Never before have I felt the force of the cliche that such and such "reads like a novel"; Liedman's book reads like the exact opposite. Marx's life is barely here, and the first half of the book is a real trial of strength; mostly, it made me excited to read Stedman-Jones' apparently insufficient account, in the hope that it would at least have some life to it.

Thankfully, Liedman's expertise appears to be ideas, rather than biography; his discussions of Marx's ideas, particularly in the Grundrisse and Capital do make the book worth a look. They're clear, concise, and generally solid. They're also amusingly 'Marxist,' in the sense that everyone and anyone who doesn't exactly agree with Liedman is dismissed in hysterical terms, as if all the history of the world hung on whether you read Marx like some German guy you've never heard of, or like some American you've never heard of, or like Liedman, who, let's be honest, you hadn't heard of until you started this book. Guys (always guys, too): you're on the same side. Stop being so ridiculous.