[OPE] A new biography of Friedrich Engels

After the Engels biographies of Riazanov (1927), Mayer (1936), Carlton (1965), Dietz Kollektiv (1970), Henderson (1976), McLellan (1978), Bluel (1981), Gemkow (1982), Carver (1989), Hunley (1991) and Green (2008), there's now another one being published by Penguin, authored by Tristam Hunt (a New Labour ideologist):

"Had Marx and Engels lived to see the day! The counting houses of global finance in freefall, traders going to the wall, and now Washington seemingly intent on nationalising its entire banking sector. As stockmarkets crash around the world, what we are now witnessing is an old-fashioned, full-throttle crisis of capitalism, and no event was more inclined to lift the mood of communism's founding fathers. In the 1850s Friedrich Engels was in Manchester, earning his and Karl Marx's crust working for his father's cotton-thread business, Ermen & Engels. After the failure of the 1848 revolutions, both men had concluded that communism's best chance lay with an economic rupture brought about by capitalism's inherent instability. And from within the very apex of global finance - the mills, counting houses and Royal Exchange of Cottonopolis, as Manchester was known - Engels reported back on the prospects of just such a collapse. As the mid-Victorian economic boom appeared to stumble and a worldwide credit crunch loomed in ways not dissimilar to the current denouement, Engels could not contain his glee."

Complete story: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/sep/20/creditcrunch.marketturmoil

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Received on Sun Sep 21 04:56:23 2008