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Secondary sourceBook1921

The Life and Teaching of Karl Marx

Max Beer · 1921

A 1921 biography and summary of Karl Marx's teachings written by Max Beer to mark the centenary of Marx's birth.

This biography summarises Marx's life and teaching for readers in the early twentieth century.

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The Life and Teaching of Karl MarxPDF · 170 pages
Max Beer, The Life and Teaching of Karl Marx, 1921.

About this source

What it is

This is a short biography of Karl Marx written by Max Beer, published in 1921 to commemorate the centenary of Marx's birth. It combines personal biographical details with an explanation of Marx's economic and historical doctrines.

Why it matters

Written to mark an anniversary, this book shows how Marx's life and ideas were being summarised and explained to new readers decades after his death, at a moment when debates about socialism and the 'Dictatorship of the Proletariat' and Bolshevism were current political questions.

Look closer

  • Why might this book have been written specifically for Marx's centenary?
  • What does the publisher's claim about 'new light' on Marx's attitude to Bolshevism suggest about the politics of the time it was written?
  • How might a book written to be read widely differ from a strictly scholarly biography?

This book is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Karl Marx on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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