Intellectual and Manual Labour
A Critique of Epistemology
A key contribution to post-war Marxist thinking, finally back in print.
Alfred Sohn-Rethel’s Intellectual and Manual Labour is one of the major texts of post-war Marxist theory. A tremendous influence on the central figures of the Frankfurt School, with ongoing relevance to current debates about value, abstraction, and domination, Sohn-Rethel’s ideas are here presented at their fullest scope and with their greatest theoretical clarity.
Out of print for many years, this Historical Materialism edition contains a new introduction by Chris O’Kane, an afterword by Chris Arthur, and a compilation of the responses to Intellectual and Manual Labour published in the Italian journal Lotta Continua, including a substantial article by Antonio Negri.
Alfred Sohn-Rethel was born in 1899. Forced to flee Germany during World War II, he settled in the United Kingdom, where he continued to work on the ideas that he would present in his magnum opus, Intellectual and Manual Labour.