Thread: The German Ideology - question about editions

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  1. #1
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    Default The German Ideology - question about editions

    So I am about to begin reading The German Ideology, but was thrown into indecisivenes by finding three different editions.

    The site won't let me post links, so I will give the names of the entries on Amazon US.

    #1: The German Ideology, including Theses on Feuerbach (Great Books in Philosophy) - Looks nice but some reviews worryingly suggest numerous misspellings and being generally annoying to read.
    #2: The German Ideology - an abridged edition lacking part II which "consisted of many satirically written polemics against Bruno Bauer, other Young Hegelians, and Max Stirner. These polemical and highly partisan sections of the "German Ideology" have not been reproduced in this edition". Is this section important or can it be skipped?
    #3: Collected Works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, 1845-47, Vol. 5: Theses on Feuerbach, The German Ideology and Related Manuscripts - Looks to be a complete edition. There is however no look inside function so I can't judge the quality.

    Help would be appreciated if you know any of these, or some other good edition.
  2. #2
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    As far as The German Ideology is concerned, the most famous part is the first one on Feuerbach. The rest of the book can easily be skipped, especially if one is knew to Marxism. The collection of significant bits from the rest of the book is collected on marxists.org. So you could go with the second option here.

    But also to give you some additional info: technically speaking, Marx and Engels never really wrote the most famous part of The German Ideology, i.e. the Feuerbach part. The text is a posthumous formation of a text out of several different and independently written pieces, the most significant part coming from bits and pieces taken away from the rest of The German Ideology by Marx and Engels, when they decided that it didn't fit into the rest of the picture. Furthermore, several printer sheets are missing. So in the end, what is Feuerbach chapter in different editions is simply a rather arbitrary set-up of independent texts in an attempt to create a coherent text out of it. For instance, some editions include passages created by the editors themselves that are placed instead of the missing pages, only supposing what they could have been saying. In general there is very long historical debate about how the Feuerbach chapter should be structured - logically, chronologically, etc.

    The reason I am saying this is because there is an edition of the chapter, which reproduces the text as it was found originally - with visible (subsequent) corrections by Marx and Engels, indicating clearly which parts of the text were written by Engels and which by Marx, etc. Generally, having the above in mind, you can go with the option #2 or you could simply read the Feuerbach chapter on marxists.org. But in case you are interest in reading the original, you can drop me a line, I will gladly share an e-version with you.
    Morality is everything which contributes to the triumph of the revolution. Immoral and criminal is everything that stands in its way.
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  4. #3
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    Got it, thanks for the help.

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