Stirner: The Ego and its Own

A new edition of a striking 19th-century German polemic against left Hegelianism and socialism.

Max Stirner (Author), David Leopold (Edited by)

9780521456470, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 6 April 1995

432 pages
21.9 x 13.7 x 2.6 cm, 0.58 kg

"Recommended as a classic in anarchist thought. This is the best edition available." --Reader's Review

Max Stirner's The Ego and Its Own is striking and distinctive in both style and content. First published in 1844, Stirner's distinctive and powerful polemic sounded the death-knell of left Hegelianism, with its attack on Ludwig Feuerbach, Bruno and Edgar Bauer, Moses Hess and others. It also constitutes an enduring critique of both liberalism and socialism from the perspective of an extreme eccentric individualism. Karl Marx was only one of many contemporaries provoked into a lengthy rebuttal of Stirner's argument. Stirner has been portrayed, variously, as a precursor of Nietzsche (both stylistically and substantively), a forerunner of existentialism and as an individualist anarchist. This edition of his work comprises a revised version of Steven Byington's much praised translation, together with an introduction and notes on the historical background to Stirner's text.

Introduction
Principal events in Stirner's life
Further reading
Note on the translation
The Ego and its own
Bibliographical and other notes on the text
Index of subjects
Index of proper names.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX]