Forside Naturvidenskab / Science Marx and Darwin

Marx and Darwin

14. maj 2007

263

On the relations between Karl Marx and Charles Darwin and their understanding of natural science. / Om Karl Marx and Charles Darwin og deres forståelse af naturvidenskaben.

Se også på Socialistisk Bibliotek:

Linkboxen: Kampen om Darwin

The Friends of Charles Darwin

Marx of Respect (2006; online at Internet Archive)
“It’s a well-known chestnut of Darwinian trivia that the father of international socialism, Karl Marx, once offered to dedicate one of the volumes of his magnum opus, Das Kapital, to that other 19th Century bearded revolutionary living in the south of England, Charles Darwin. Unfortunately, it turns out that this particular chestnut is something of a myth, although the story of how it came about is of interest in its own right.” See also: Didn’t Karl Marx offer to dedicate Das Kapital to Darwin? (ibid., 16 July 2012) + Letter by Bob Potter: Marx myth (Weekly Worker, Issue 651, November 30, 2006; scroll down).

Marxists Internet Archive

Glossary of People: Darwin, Charles (1890-82)

Anton Pannekoek: Marx and Darwin (Charles H. Kerr, 1912)

Edward Aveling: Charles Darwin and Karl Marx: A comparison (The New Century Review, March-April 1897)

Monthly Review

Margaret A. Fay: Marx and Darwin: A literary detective story (Vol. 31, No. 10, March 1980, p. 40-57)
(not online, July 2015). See Abstract.
“… Marx’s offer to dedicate any of his work to Darwin was finally revealed for what it really is: a myth which entered the accumulation of historical facts when a letter which Darwin had written to Aveling in 1880 was attributed to Marx’s correspondence 50 years after both Marx and Darwin died.” See also The Friends of Charles Darwin above.

Natural History

Stephen Jay Gould: A Darwinian gentleman at Marx’s funeral (September 1999; online at Internet Archive)
“The odd friendship of an evolutionist and a revolutionist.” Reprinted as chapter six in Stephen Jay Gould, I Have Landed (London, 2002).

New Left Review

Valentino Gerratana: Marx and Darwin (Issue 82, Nov.-Dec. 1973, p.60-82)
“… a striking and sensitive analysis of the actual relations between Marx and Darwin, which should put to rest many partisan preconceptions.” Only summary online.

Reason in Revolt

By Alan Woods and Ted Grant (London, Wellred, 1995). Chapter:
Marxism and Darvinism (p. 309-322)
“Although they greatly admired Darwin, Marx and Engels were by no means uncritical of his theories.”

Socialist Standard

Ed Blewitt: Marx and Engels on The Origin of Species (Issue 1254, June 19, 2006)
“Engels bought a copy of Darwin’s The Origin of Species as soon as it was published.”

Socialist Voice

Ian Angus: Marx, Engels and Darwin (pdf) (2009, 27 p., online at Socialisthistory.ca)
“How Darwin’s theory of evolution confirmed and extended the most fundamental concepts of Marxism.”
Also online at International Socialist Review: Marx and Engels…and Darwin? (Issue 65, May–June 2009).

World Socialist Web Site

Chris Talbot: Marx and Darwin: Two great revolutionary thinkers of the nineteenth century. Part 1-3 (17-19 June 2009)
“We want to bring out the connection between Darwin and that other great thinker of the mid-19th century, Karl Marx.”