Paul Blackledge is the author of Friedrich Engels and Modern Social and Political Theory (2019), Marxism and Ethics (2012), Reflections on the Marxist Theory of History (2006), and Perry Anderson, Marxism and the New Left (2004).
A hostile caricature depicts Friedrich Engels as an arch-determinist who presented human beings as the puppets of economic forces. In fact, his historical writings were subtle and sophisticated, showing how human agency can change the course of history.
The German Marxist thinker Karl Kautsky uncovered the radical history of Christianity, from the early years of the Church to the Reformation and the German Peasant War. His pioneering work in Marxist historiography deserves to be remembered today.