Marxism was a powerful force in French political and intellectual life throughout the twentieth century. Modern French Marxism tells the story of how it dominated the battle of ideas.
Michael Kelly takes readers from Marxism’s early beginnings to its peak in the 1970s. He follows conceptual debates on the materialist dialectic, explores Marxism as a system of thought, and conveys the ambition of the men and women of letters who sought to change the world. This second edition is augmented with essays on how Marxist thinkers grappled with religion, everyday life, the Cold War, and other leading intellectual movements.
Michael Kelly is Emeritus Professor of French at the University of Southampton. He has published widely on French intellectual movements and French culture of the twentieth century, on European language policy and on languages in war and conflict.
Publication date: June 16, 2026
Introduction to the Second Edition
Introduction to the First Edition
1 Beginnings 1845–1929
1 Marx, Engels, and the Hegelian Dialectic
2 Marxism in France before 1917
3 Hegel in France
4 The 1920s
2 The Irruption 1929–39
1 Marxism and the Crisis of the 1930s
2 A New Elaboration
3 The Self-Inverting Dialectic
4 Stalin and Dogmatism
5 In Defence of Materialism
3 War and Post-War 1939–48
1 Marxism and the Second World War
2 Liberation and Reconstruction
3 Towards an Objective Idealism
4 Back to Hegel
4 Cold War 1948–56
1 Two Camps
2 Nadir of Philosophy
3 Stirrings of Recovery
4 The Early Althusser
5 Critiques of the Existentialist Dialectic
5 New Beginnings 1956–62
1 1956 and its Aftermath
2 Lefebvre’s Problems with Marxism
3 Dialectics and Dialogue
4 Existentialism and the Dialectic
6 Innovations 1962–8 Part One
1 Althusser: Against Inversion
2 Contradiction and Overdetermination
3 The New Model Dialectic
4 Althusser and Garaudy
7 Explorations 1962–8 Part Two
1 The Destalinisation of Philosophy
2 Godelier and the Cybernetic Dialectic
3 Tran Due Thao’s Materialist Inversion
4 Garaudy’s pluralist dialectic
5 Sève and the Scientific Dialectic
8 Changes 1968–74
1 1968
2 The Fate of Garaudy
3 Development of Althusser’s Theory
4 Sève and the New Consensus
9 New Directions 1974–80
1 Jaeglé, Science, and Dialectics
2 Labica Against Philosophy
3 D’Hondt on Contradiction and Difference
4 Mercier-Josa and the Detour via Hegel
10 Conclusion to the First Edition
11 Annotated Bibliography
1 French History
2 French Marxism
3 Individual French Marxists
12 Marxism and Faith
13 Les Lendemains qui Pensent
14 French Intellectuals and Zhdanovism
15 The Historical Emergence of Everyday Life
16 Towards a Heuristic Method: Sartre and Lefebvre
17 Demystification: A Dialogue Between Barthes and Lefebvre
References
Index