Mary Gabriel
Mary Gabriel's Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution is a 2011 National Book Award Finalist.
From her interview with Paul Casciato for Reuters:
Q: Wasn't Marx a crowded field for a writer?Megan Gilbert asked Gabriel: How do you think the professional lives of great thinkers are influenced by their private lives? Read Gabriel's answer.
A: There are libraries of books on Marx and books on his theory in every conceivable language, but I was shocked to find that among all those volumes there was not a single book that focused on Marx and his family. Marx's personal life has been a controversial subject from the time of his death in 1883. Immediately after his burial efforts began by his followers to sanitize his story so that this 'socialist god' would not seem human.
I believed there was room for another biography that told the story of Marx and his family, that readers ought to be introduced to Marx as husband, father and friend - for better or worse. Readers will see that this man was not at all the stern patrician he appeared to be in socialist and communist propaganda. I also found that uncovering the private Marx helped me understand his theory. Having done so, I can't imagine reading Marx's works without understanding the circumstances in which they were written and the historical events that were unfolding around him as he did so.
Q: What surprised you most about Marx?
A: I was shocked by how...[read on]
--Marshal Zeringue
