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Marxist Thought and the City

Henri Lefebvre author Robert Bononno translator

Format:Hardback

Publisher:University of Minnesota Press

Published:28th Nov '16

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Marxist Thought and the City cover

One of the most influential Marxist theorists of the twentieth century, Henri Lefebvre first published Marxist Thought and the City in French in 1972, marking a pivotal point in his evolution as a thinker and an important precursor to his groundbreaking work of urban sociology, The Production of Space. Marxist Thought and the City—inwhich he reviews the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels for commentary and analysis on the life and growth of the city—now appears in English for the first time. 

Rooted in orthodox Marxism’s analyses of capitalism and the capitalist mode of production, with extensive quotations from the works of Marx and Engels, this book describes the city’s transition from life under feudalism to modern industrial capitalism. In doing so it highlights the various forces that sought to maintain power in the struggles between the medieval aristocracy and the urban guilds, amid the growth of banking and capital. 

Providing vital background and supplementary material to Lefebvre’s other books, including The Urban Revolution and Right to the City, Marxist Thought and the City is indispensable for students and scholars of urbanism, Marxism, social geography, early modern history, and the history of economic thought.

"This pithy, provocative little book brings Marxist humanism to bear on urban problems as pressing today as they were nearly half-a-century ago. Upsizing cities spell downsizing work, the coming of urban society announces the financialization of space, a crisis of industrial production begets a politics of urban reproduction—all with daunting threats as well as immanent possibilities. Dead for twenty-five years, old man Lefebvre lives on as our most visionary twenty-first-century urban thinker."—Andy Merrifield, author of Metromarxism, Magical Marxism, and The New Urban Question

"Lefebvre’s work remains of enduring importance."—Stuart Elden, from the Foreword


"Stimulating and resonant, suggesting new ways of attending to some classics of urban theory... My high praise goes to Elden and, especially, Bononno for producing this lovely book, which I am glad to have read."—Antipode

"The text reads like a well-crafted set of research notes, constituting a preliminary step toward the concrete elaboration of ‘the urban’ as a historical mode of production. This volume would be useful both to those who labor in the Marxist tradition as well as to those generally interested in what Edward Soja calls the ‘spatial turn’ in critical social theory."—Marx & Philosophy

ISBN: 9780816698745

Dimensions: 203mm x 127mm x 25mm

Weight: unknown

160 pages