Althusser: the detour of theory

Preliminary Material -- The Moment of Althusser -- A Recommencement of Dialectical Materialism -- Returning to Marx? A Reconstruction of Historical Materialism -- The Time of Theory,The Time of Politics -- Questions of Stalinism -- The Eclipse of Althusserianism -- Unfinished History -- The Necessity of Contingency -- References -- Bibliography of the Published Writings of Louis Althusser -- Index -- Historicalmaterialism Book Series.

First published in 1987, "Althusser: The Detour of Theory" was widely received as the fullest account of its subject to date. Drawing on a wide range of hitherto untranslated material, it examined the political and intellectual contexts of Althusser's 'return to Marx' in the mid-1960s; analysed the novel character of the Marxism developed in his major works; charted their author's subsequent evolution, from his self-criticism to the proclamation of a 'crisis of Marxism'; and concluded with a balance-sheet of Althusser's contribution to historical materialism. For this second edition, Gregory Elliott has added a substantial postscript in which he surveys the posthumous edition of the French philosopher's work published in the 1990s, from the early writings of the 1940s through to the late texts of the 1980s, relating the unknown Althusser revealed by them to the familiar figure of "For Marx" and "Reading Capital", together with a comprehensive bibliography of Althusser's oeuvre