Edison's Ghosts by Katie Spalding

Author:Katie Spalding [Spalding, Katie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2023-05-16T00:00:00+00:00

Footnotes

1 Edgar Bauer was a German political philosopher who hung out with Marx while they were at the University of Berlin. Along with other famous names, like Engels, Feuerbach and Edgar’s older brother Bruno, they were part of a club called the Young Hegelians on account of their being a) young and b) dedicated to the philosopher Hegel. Despite Bauer starting life as a hardcore anarchist student writing theoretical justifications of political terrorism, in the second half of his life he had transformed into more of a hardcore conservative civil servant, writing theoretical justifications for being a narc. This change of attitude is, unsurprisingly, what caused that enmity between the two philosophers that Liebknecht referenced.

It should be noted that even when Bauer was spying on Marx for the police (that narc reference wasn’t an idle insult) and Marx thought of Bauer as some Tory loser, they were still happy to get wasted together – although Bauer did punch Marx right in the face on at least one occasion.

2 Liebknecht was a socialist and journalist, and one of the main founders of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). He may be the least recognisable name of the three for most people, but he may have had the strongest lasting impact on politics: the current Chancellor of Germany, Olaf Scholz, is a member of the SPD.

3 Like Freemasons, but with more alcohol.

4 Not to imply that Karl Marx ever said anything controversial, but, arguably, the Brits get to claim Handel. Born in Germany, yes, but he moved to Britain aged twenty-seven and spent nearly twice as long again living in London – right next door to Jimi Hendrix, as it happens, albeit separated by a few hundred years. And if further proof were needed as to Handel’s nationality, suffice it to say that there exists an Act of Parliament called Handel’s Naturalisation Act 1727, which is literally a piece of legislation that was passed in the House of Commons to make Handel British.

5 This is Karl’s chapter, so it wouldn’t really be right to go too deeply into the story of Jenny von Westphalen, Marx’s wife, but she was quite the character in her own right. Born the daughter of a baron, she ditched a well-to-do lieutenant’s proposal to instead marry an upstart socialist revolutionary who was four years her junior, a commoner, and, perhaps most controversially of all, vaguely Jewish.

She was free-thinking, well-educated, and passionate throughout her life for socialism, women’s rights and providing for refugees. Her story is quite a sad one – filled with loss and heartache – and she probably would have been a lot better off if she had married the lieutenant. But, without her, none of Marx’s legacy would have been possible – she was without a doubt his most dedicated supporter in pretty much every sense.

6 Marx Senior was not what you might expect given his son’s legacy. First of all, he was a pretty wealthy and well-respected lawyer, who, on one occasion, was recorded as raising ‘a toast to the King of Prussia, in the fullness of his omnipotence’.

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