Abstract

Engels is perhaps the most neglected, and certainly the most unfashionable, of the major socialist thinkers. Yet many of the most problematical aspects of Marxist theory, such as dialectics, materialism, base and superstructure, scientific socialism and gender, are dealt with most explicitly in the classic texts of Marxism by Engels rather than by Marx himself. This work is not an account of Engels' life. Rather, it offers an interpretation of Engels' social theory, politics and philosophy. Its purpose is to assess Engels' contribution to the genesis of Marxism in the period before 1848; to ask how far Engels departed from this paradigm in the years after 1848; and to examines the degree to which Marx himself shared Engels' intellectual trajectory.