Includes bibliographical references (p. [289]-333) and index.

Marxism in the postcommunist world -- Can French intellectuals escape Marxism? -- The Frankfurt School and the transformation of critical theory into cultural theory -- Habermas's reorientation of critical theory toward democratic theory -- The anticommunist Marxism of 'Socialisme ou Barbarie' -- Claude Lefort's passage from revolutionary theory to political theory -- From Marx to Castoriadis, and from Castoriadis to us -- From the critique of totalitarianism to the politics of democracy -- The burden of French history -- Intersecting trajectories of republicanism in France and the United States -- Reading U.S. history as political -- Fundamentalism and the American exception -- Philosophy by other means?

"In this engaging and persuasive book, Dick Howard takes a critically innovative look at Marxism and its blind spots and rethinks the nature of democracy. He explores the attraction Marxism holds for intellectuals, examines two hundred years of democratic political life-focusing on the American and French Revolutions and the truly "revolutionary" aspects of those events-and rethinks Marx's contribution to democratic politics. Howard concludes that Marx was attempting a "philosophy by other means," and that, paradoxically, because he was such an astute philosopher Marx was unable to see the radical political implications of his own analyses. Howard offers a new way of thinking about democratic policy as a political ideal, positing that Marx could have seen this radical third way but did not." -- Cover.