Andrew Hartman, "Karl Marx in America" (U Chicago Press, 2025)

Jun 15, 2025

Andrew Hartman, a history professor at Illinois State University and author of "Karl Marx in America," explores the unexpected relevance of Marx's ideas in contemporary America. He discusses how Marx has influenced various movements, from labor rights to anti-war protests, despite the common perception of the U.S. as anti-Marxist. Hartman dives into the historical reception of Marx during pivotal moments like the Great Depression and the Cold War, and highlights a modern resurgence of interest in Marxist thought amid rising inequality and labor struggles.

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INSIGHT

Marx's Fascination with America

Karl Marx, despite never visiting America, was fascinated by its extreme form of democracy and capitalism.
He saw potential for socialism through American democracy but became skeptical about actual working-class power.

INSIGHT

Abolition's Link to Worker Liberation

Marx linked abolition of slavery to the liberation of the working class.
He argued that labor exploitation persisted while racial slavery existed, viewing abolition as a strategic class struggle step.

INSIGHT

1930s Marx Boom and New Deal

The 1930s saw a peak in favorable reading of Marx due to the Great Depression's impact.
FDR's New Deal embraced labor reforms not as Marxism but to save capitalism and stabilize society.

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Karl Marx in America (University of Chicago Press, 2025), by Andrew Hartman

To read Karl Marx is to contemplate a world created by capitalism. People have long viewed the United States as the quintessential anti-Marxist nation, but Marx’s ideas have inspired a wide range of people to formulate a more precise sense of the stakes of the American project. Historians have highlighted the imprint made on the United States by Enlightenment thinkers such as Adam Smith, John Locke, and Thomas Paine, but Marx is rarely considered alongside these figures. Yet his ideas are the most relevant today because of capitalism’s centrality to American life.
In historian Andrew Hartman argues that even though Karl Marx never visited America, the country has been infused, shaped, and transformed by him. Since the beginning of the Civil War, Marx has been a specter in the American machine. During the Gilded Age, socialists read Marx as an antidote to the unchecked power of corporations. In the Great Depression, communists turned to Marx in hopes of transcending the destructive capitalist economy. The young activists of the 1960s were inspired by Marx as they gathered to protest an overseas war. Marx’s influence today is evident, too, as Americans have become increasingly attuned to issues of inequality, labor, and power.
After decades of being pushed to the far-left corner of intellectual thought, Marx’s ideologies have crossed over into the mainstream and are more alive than ever. Working-class consciousness is on the rise, and, as Marx argued, the future of a capitalist society rests in the hands of the people who work at the point of production. A valuable resource for anyone interested in Marx’s influence on American political discourse, Karl Marx in America is a thought-provoking account of the past, present, and future of his philosophies in American society.

Andrew Hartman is professor of history at Illinois State University. He is the author of A War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars, published by the University of Chicago Press, and Education and the Cold War: The Battle for the American School. He is also the coeditor of American Labyrinth: Intellectual History for Complicated Times.

Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature.

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/a48266/videos

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