Althusser: The Detour of TheoryFirst published in 1987, Althusser, The Detour of Theory was widely received as the fullest account of its subject to date. Drawing on a wide range of hitherto untranslated material, it examined the political and intellectual contexts of Althusser’s ‘return to Marx’ in the mid-1960s; analysed the novel character of the Marxism developed in his major works; charted their author’s subsequent evolution, from his self-criticism to the proclamation of a ‘crisis of Marxism’; and concluded with a balance-sheet of Althusser’s contribution to historical materialism. ?For this second edition, Gregory Elliott has added a substantial postscript in which he surveys the posthumous edition of the French philosopher’s work published in the 1990s, from the early writings of the 1940s through to the late texts of the 1980s, relating the unknown Althusser revealed by them to the familiar figure of For Marx and Reading Capital, together with a comprehensive bibliography of Althusser’s oeuvre. Gregory Elliott was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, where he completed his D.Phil. on Louis Althusser in 1985. An independent translator and writer, his books include Perry Anderson: The Merciless Laboratory of History (1998). His most recent translation is Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello’s The New Spirit of Capitalism(2006).. |
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Althusser 1969a Althusser and Balibar Althusser's Althusserian analysis Ben Brewster bourgeois Callinicos capitalist characterised class struggle Communist Party concept concrete conjuncture constituted contemporary contradiction CPSU crisis of Marxism critical critique Cultural Revolution dialectical materialism economic Écrits philosophiques edition epistemological Essays Étienne Balibar Eurocommunism Feuerbach France François Maspero Freud Garaudy Hegel Hegelian historical materialism human humanist intellectuals international Communist movement John Lewis Khrushchev knowledge Lacan Lenin Louis Althusser Macciocchi Maoist Marx and Engels Marx and Reading Marx's Marxist philosophy Marxist theory materialist mode of production object organisation orthodoxy Paris PCF's philosophiques et politiques position problematic productive forces proletariat psychoanalysis Published Rancière Reading Capital reality relations of production Reply to John Reprinted reproduction revolutionary Sartre scientific social formation socialist society Soviet Spinoza Stalin Stalinist strategy structure superstructure theoretical practice theoretical revolution theory of theoretical thesis tradition transformation transition Translated USSR writings young Marx