2nd Edition

Specters of Marx The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning and the New International

By Jacques Derrida Copyright 2026
248 Pages
by Routledge

248 Pages
by Routledge

248 Pages
by Routledge

Published shortly after the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe and the dissolution of the Soviet regime,  Specters of Marx  is one of Derrida's most interesting and prophetic books. Whilst many in the West heralded the triumph of liberal democracy and “the end of history”, Derrida takes several steps back to argue that whilst Communism may have disappeared in much of the world, the questions... Read more

Foreword to the Routledge Classics Edition Peter Salmon

Translator's Note Peggy Kamuf

Editors' Introduction Bernd Magnus and Stephen Cullenberg

Dedication

Exordium 

1. Injunctions of Marx

2. Conjuring—Marxism

3. Wears and Tears (Tableau of an ageless world)

4. In the Name of the Revolution, the Double Barricade (Impure “impure impure history of

ghosts”)

5. Apparition of the Inapparent: The phenomenological “conjuring trick”

6. Thirty Years Later Étienne Balibar

7. Debate around Specters of Marx Jacques Derrida, Étienne Balibar, and Patrice Loraux.

Index

Biography

Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) was born in Algeria. His philosophy, known widely for launching the theory of deconstruction, fused psychoanalysis, Marxist theory, philosophy and literature. Derrida was a central figure in academic life in the latter part of the twentieth century, and his work continues to provoke and inspire throughout the intellectual world.

'One of Derrida's best books' New Statesman and Society