The Foundations of Social Democracy, 1890-1933
This research project examines the origins of the intellectual tradition of social democracy, focusing on ‘reformist’ and ‘ethical’ socialist political thought in late-Wilhelmine and Weimar Germany. This strand of socialism, which uses moral critiques of capitalist society to argue for the transition to socialism, has often been unfairly neglected. It is usually reduced to a synonym for ‘revisionist’ Marxism, and its significance is downplayed relative to other canons of left thought: Western Marxism, Marxism-Leninism, and social liberalism.
This project redresses both areas of neglect. It redirects the focus of intellectual historians onto the wider network of early-20th-century social-democratic thinkers, and seeks to show how these thinkers engaged with more familiar currents of left thought, above all the Frankfurt School, Austromarxism, and left-communism. Its main output is a three-volume series of translations of the later writings of the foundational social-democratic thinker Eduard Bernstein. Overall, the project aims to restore this early current of social democracy to prominence, not just as a rich ideological tradition in its own right, but also as a source of insights for the problems of contemporary society.
Eduard Bernstein on Social Democracy and International Politics
Reviews: “Fabulous collection of Bernstein’s most profound works” (Marc Stears, University of Sydney) “Valuable and fluent translation … with an accomplished scholarly introduction” (Michael Freeden, University of Oxford)
Eduard Bernstein on the German Revolution
Reviews: “Essential reading for historians of the First World War and Weimar Germany” (Ingrid Sharp, University of Leeds) “An excellent and highly readable translation … detailed introduction and illuminating explanatory notes” (Darrow Schecter, University of Sussex)
Eduard Bernstein on Socialism Past and Present
Reviews: “Illuminating collection … immeasurably valuable for both supporters and critics” (Lea Ypi, London School of Economics) “A valuable contribution to our understanding of the development of the socialist tradition during a period of great political turmoil” (Martin O’Neill, University of York)
Selected publications:
This project redresses both areas of neglect. It redirects the focus of intellectual historians onto the wider network of early-20th-century social-democratic thinkers, and seeks to show how these thinkers engaged with more familiar currents of left thought, above all the Frankfurt School, Austromarxism, and left-communism. Its main output is a three-volume series of translations of the later writings of the foundational social-democratic thinker Eduard Bernstein. Overall, the project aims to restore this early current of social democracy to prominence, not just as a rich ideological tradition in its own right, but also as a source of insights for the problems of contemporary society.
Eduard Bernstein on Social Democracy and International Politics
Reviews: “Fabulous collection of Bernstein’s most profound works” (Marc Stears, University of Sydney) “Valuable and fluent translation … with an accomplished scholarly introduction” (Michael Freeden, University of Oxford)
Eduard Bernstein on the German Revolution
Reviews: “Essential reading for historians of the First World War and Weimar Germany” (Ingrid Sharp, University of Leeds) “An excellent and highly readable translation … detailed introduction and illuminating explanatory notes” (Darrow Schecter, University of Sussex)
Eduard Bernstein on Socialism Past and Present
Reviews: “Illuminating collection … immeasurably valuable for both supporters and critics” (Lea Ypi, London School of Economics) “A valuable contribution to our understanding of the development of the socialist tradition during a period of great political turmoil” (Martin O’Neill, University of York)
Selected publications:
- ‘Eduard Bernstein’, in Mortimer Sellers and Stephan Kirste (eds.), Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy (Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, forthcoming 2023)
- ‘“Soon, perhaps, one will also not be allowed to perform Shakespeare any more”: National culture and nationalist propaganda in the German Kaiserreich’, in Amy Lidster and Sonia Massai (eds.), Wartime Shakespeare (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2023)
- ‘“You do not have to elect naysayers any more, but yeasayers!”: Changing views of parliamentarism in German Social Democracy from Kaiserreich to Republic’, in Carolina Armenteros and Mariana Bonnouvrier (eds.), Monarchy and European Republicanism since the Eighteenth Century (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming 2022)
- ‘Social Democracy and “positive” foreign policy: the evolution of Eduard Bernstein’s international thought, 1914–1920’, History of Political Thought 42 (forthcoming 2021).
- Eduard Bernstein on Socialism Past and Present: Essays and Lectures on Ideology (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020)
- Eduard Bernstein on the German Revolution: Selected Historical Writings (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019)
- ‘Eduard Bernstein and the Lessons of the German Revolution’, in James Muldoon and Gaard Kets (eds.), The German Revolution and Political Theory (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 137-58.
- Eduard Bernstein on Social Democracy and International Politics: Essays and Other Writings (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018)