Main Currents of Marxism: The Founders, The Golden Age, The Breakdown Book

How can I begin to review a book like this? The reviewer of the last edition put out noted that the book is 1500 pages, but written by anyone else it would have been ten times as long. And that is exactly right. This books is encyclopedic in the volume of information it conveys, and yet it strings it all together so that you're following more or less chronologically, enriching each period as you go with greater and greater knowledge of all the key players.

This is a book about the history of Marxist doctrine, from its pre-history (which Kolakowski traces all the way back to ideas in Plotinus and the neo-Platonists) right on down to when the first edition of the book came out in 1976. Though he continually stresses that he is interested only in the variations of the doctrine, the connection between political ideas and political practice is particularly hard to disentangle in this case, especially once Lenin and Stalin and the USSR enter the picture (quite late in the book, I might add!) Among the book's many virtues is covering in outline the history of several political movements, as a result of this connection.

Really, I cannot recommend this book enough to anyone who wishes to understand the history of the 20th century. It won't give you that history, but it will fill in one of the most important background components of that history, and in richer detail than you would think possible for a single book. I personally feel as though a great deal has been brought into sharp focus that had remained just in my peripheral vision for years.

Of course, a 1500 book on Marxism is not for everyone. Though I got a great deal out of it, I admit I'm relieved to finally be able to be able to move on to the next book. But if you want to read *the* definitive history of this subject, by one who was not a Marxist himself at the time he wrote it, then look no further than this book.