Lukács Library

The image of György Lukács’s work, especially in the English-speaking world, has been limited by the absence of translations of some of the most significant writing. The Lukács Library seeks to fill out the picture of Lukács’ massively productive and diverse writing and to correct the reception of Lukács through the nearly exclusive emphasis of Western Marxism and the New Left on Lukács’ early work. In particular, the Lukács Library translations will offer a much richer view of Lukács’ long-evolving engagement with the changing contexts of modern European culture over the eight decades of his life, with the shifts in the socialist and communist movement, and with the dominant and emerging philosophical paradigms of the twentieth century. The Lukács Library’s major expansion of the corpus of English-language translations of Lukács’ writings will especially train new attention on writings that span Lukács’ advocacy of an anti-fascist cultural front policy, a new democratic popular front following the fall of fascism, and an anti-Stalinist socialist democracy in a global environment of coexistence following the 20th Congress in 1956 in which Khrushschev initiated the post-Stalin thaw. In addition, it will provide new material for understanding the genesis of the major, influential, and much-discussed works that have previously appeared in English translations.