[OPE-L:6458] Marx's Mathematical Manuscripts

Alan Freeman (a.freeman@greenwich.ac.uk)
Tue, 14 Apr 1998 09:36:48 -0500

One of my students has brought me a review of a complete translation of
Marx's Mathematical Manuscripts.

The review appeared in "Nature, Society and Thought" volume 9 #1, which is
printed out of Minnesota University.

The manuscripts have been translated and edited by Pradip Baksi, and
published in 1994 by Viswakos Parisad (73A Amherst Row, Calcutta 700 009,
India), priced at $80, according to the review.

The review says that this is a full translation. There is an extant
translation that I know of but have not seen, which is referred to in the
review, and is translated by C. Aronson and M. Meo (New Park 1983) but
evidently this earlier translation contains only a third of the manuscripts
contained in the Baksi translation. Paulus Gerdes has also published a
commentary on the manuscripts which I have seen and didn't much like.

>From the review, it seems clear that this is a translation of the
collection published in 1968 by "Izdat'yelno Nauka" (Scientific Publishers)
in Moscow. This contains the original German and also a Russian translation
of around 280 printed pages of Marx's notes on mathematical matters dated
between 1863 and 1880. The notes to the text are very comprehensive and the
edition, which I have, seems very thorough.

It looks as if the translators have essentially reproduced the book in
English and added four or five contemporary articles by Russian writers.

Seems good to me. Sorry if people already knew.

Alan