Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T02:27:20.127Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Introduction: “The Friend of Freedom”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Douglas Moggach
Affiliation:
University of Ottawa
Get access

Summary

To understand Bauer, one must understand our time.

What is our time? It is revolutionary.

Edgar Bauer, October 1842

Bruno Bauer has provoked intense controversies since the 1830s, yet his work remains inaccessible, his meaning elusive. He is most familiar as the object of Marx's sharp polemical attacks in The Holy Family and The German Ideology, though Albert Schweitzer, in his widely noted Quest of the Historical Jesus, gives him a receptive and sensitive reading. He is far more complex a figure than the caricature that Marx's denunciations make of him. In the decisive political circumstances of the German Vormärz, the prelude to the revolutions of March 1848, Bauer's is the voice of an original republicanism, inspired by Hegel. He is a theorist of revolution, of its causes and its failures. Analysing the emergent tendencies of modern society, he criticises both the old order and new ideological currents in the interests of a profound, republican liberation.

The literature on the Hegelian Left has depicted in diverse ways the revolution that Bauer theorises: as abstract-utopian posturing, as a religious crisis, or as a cultural degradation or mutation. Recent commentators stress the political dimensions of the crisis and the interest of the Left Hegelians, Bauer foremost among them, in developing a theory of popular sovereignty and citizenship. Important studies have linked them to the literary and political currents of their time and traced the changing patterns of their relationships with early French socialism.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2003

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×