In this ambitious and original study, Stathis Kouvelakis paints a rich panorama of the key intellectual and political figures in the effervescence of German thought before the 1848 revolutions. He shows how the attempt to chart a moderate, reformist path entered into crisis, generating two antagonistic perspectives within the progressive currents of German society. On one side were those socialists - such as Moses Hess and the young Friedrich Engels - who sought to discover a principle of harmony in social relations. On the other side, the poet Heinrich Heine and the young Karl Marx developed a new perspective, articulating revolutionary rupture, thereby redefining the very notion of politics itself.

This new edition of the book includes a long interview with Kouvelakis which puts the work in context.

Stathis Kouvelakis is a reader in political theory at King's College London. He is author and editor of many books, including the La France en r volte. Luttes sociales et cycles politiques (Textuel, Paris, 2007), Critical Companion to Contemporary Marxism (Haymarket, New York, 2009) and Lenin Reloaded: Toward a Politics of Truth (co-edited with Sebastian Budgen and Slavoj Zizek, Duke University Press, Durham, 2007), a book translated in German, Italian, Spanish and Turkish.

For years Kouvelakis was prominent member of the Syriza, Greece's far left political party. He even had a leadship role during their rapid ascent from a protest movement to the governing party of the beleaguered country, but resigned with thousands of other party members following the Prime Minister's capitulation to Troika in the summer of 2015.