Really Existing Nationalisms

A brave, avowedly revisionist appraisal of what Marx and Engels themselves had to say in this field. The study is carefully contextualized, both in relation to intellectual influences and in relation to the turbulent political and economic developments of the middle decades of the nineteenth century ... Benner's background in political philosophy is apparent in her deft summaries of the Hegelian legacy.
valuable as a contribution to the study of political philosophy or of international relations ... historians might also benefit from her careful dissection of Marx's and Engels' concepts and from her efforts in extricating their thought from some of the stereotypes into which it has been forced, as much by those claiming to inherit their mantle as by their detractors ... it is a welcome revisionist contribution to the literature
... formidable and academically vigorous book in which, literally, no page of Marx's and Engel's voluminous literary legacies remain unturned ... it should not be judged by its contribution to the knowledge and understanding of the problems of contemporary nations and nationalism but as another addition to the scholarly literature inquiring into the works of Marx and Engels and dealing with the various (mis)interpretations of their ideas.

Erica Benner was formerly lecturer in Political Philosophy at Warsaw University