Citizen Marx

"Winner of the Political Theory Prize, European Consortium for Political Research"
"[A] study of Karl Marx by a young political theorist named Bruno Leipold. . . . It’s the Marx you never knew about. It’s Marx as a theorist of freedom, who cared about things like freedom of the press — passionately. . . . He was someone who really cared about this. That was a shock to me — institutional and constitutional design. He was obsessed with the Constitution of the Second French Republic. . . . There’s Marx, going all in. And it’s 1850, 1851. This isn’t young Marx. It’s mature Marx."---Corey Robin, The Ezra Klein Show
"In his informative and enjoyable new book [Leipold] examines the political opinions of Karl Marx and their place in the rather neglected field of 19^th-century republicanism. . . . [H]ighly original."---Jonathan Rée, Literary Review
"Many non-socialist 19th-century radicals shared much of Marx’s diagnosis of the problems with capitalism. But they disagreed sharply with his proposed cure. They dreamed of reversing the process by which the working class had lost access to its own means of production. Bruno Leipold gives us a fascinating look at these debates. . . . [and] showcases the ways in which classical republican themes about freedom from arbitrary power influenced Marx’s own thought."---Ben Burgis, Unherd
"In his excellent book Citizen Marx, the political theorist Bruno Leipold demonstrates in great detail how important such engagement was to Karl Marx himself. . . . Among its many valuable contributions to the vast literature on Marx and Marxism, Citizen Marx establishes, against critics like Hannah Arendt, how fundamentally political and democratic Marx’s socialism was."---Chris Maisano, Dissent
"[A] brilliant systematic study of Marx’s relationship to republicanism as a form of radical politics in his lifetime, and the heavy influence on Marx’s ideas of the republican conception of freedom. . . . [Citizen Marx] ought to be very widely read. . . . [and] it should be comprehensible and useful to activists in the organized and disorganized left."---Mike McNair, Jacobin
"Leipold boldly argues that 'republican freedom suffused Marx’s critique of the social domination of capitalism'. . . . [and] convincingly shows that Marx did not really convert to a preexisting communist vision so much as fashion his own version of communism by combining elements of republicanism with it. . . . provocative."---Andrew Hartman, New Labor Forum
"Citizen Marx presents a compelling, deeply researched, and elegantly written analysis of Marx’s relationship to republicanism, and it will no doubt become an important point of reference in future discussions about Marx’s thought. . . . [It] is an excellent reconstruction of the debates in which Marx’s communism was forged, and it succeeds in contextualizing Marx’s thinking without burying it in the nineteenth century. Although the book is clearly a work of intellectual history, it also engages with several issues that remain relevant for twenty-first century revolutionaries."---Søren Mau, Spectre
"Leipold meticulously documents Marx’s vacillating journey between the philosophies of republicanism and socialism. . . . Classical history of political thought tends to present Marx’s thought as a stand-alone, independent reflection on the political tensions of industrial capitalism, as if Marx’s socialism emerged out of an intellectual vacuum. But Leipold shows that Marx continuously positioned himself vis-à-vis rival thinkers and activists."---Tim Christiaens, LSE Review of Books
"[A] highly readable debut. The book's clear strengths include its intensive source material, its conscious consideration of the historical context, and Leipold's ability to identify the specific content of Marx's 'republican communism.'"---Joshua Graf, Portal für Politikwissenschaft
"Written in an accessible style, Citizen Marx is useful for activists and scholars in establishing the historical context of Karl Marx’s revolutionary politics and parsing out Marx’s motivating principles. . . . [A] worthwhile excursion into Karl Marx’s theory of state and revolution."---David Worley, Against the Current
"A richly detailed and meticulously argued intellectual archaeology of both congruities and divergences between Marx’s socialism and his republican contemporaries. . . . Leipold's comprehensive and convincing tour de force surveys not only Marx’s thought but also various strands of leftist thinking in 19th-century Europe, including neglected republicanism. . . . Essential." * Choice *
"A powerful corrective. . . . Citizen Marx is, once again, a monument to the rewards of a contextualist approach. . . . Leipold at last offers us a comprehensive panorama of Marx’s thought, on both general and academic tracks. . . . [and] renders both Marx studies and the republican historiography a service. Along the way, Leipold clears a field for Marx studies rarely found before."---Anton Jäger, Modern Intellectual History
"Bruno Leipold’s Citizen Marx is a bracing and convincingly argued reconstruction of Karl Marx’s political thought through the lens of the republican tradition."---Sam Ben-Meir, Marx & Philosophy