Marxism is both critical study of a body thought and an historical account of how Marxist theory arose from the context of European history in the nineteenth century. In this major work, the author traces the development of socialist thought from the French Revolution to the Russian Revolution and attempts to show in what manner the political and intellectual problems of Central Europe between 1848 and 1948 came to dominate the theory and practice of the Marxist movement that formed the crucial link between these two revolutions. At the same time, he places Marx's theory of economic development in the context of nineteenth century thinking in general and, in particular, relates it to the assault on liberalism. It is the author's opinion that Marxism is a movement and a doctrine belonging essentially to an era that came to an end with the Russian Revolution and that its impact as a doctrine has now been absorbed.