March 09, 2004

Research help request

Posted by Chris

Below the fold is a request for someone to dig out something Marx-related from their university library for me.

I’m giving a paper on Friday on Marx and Rousseau at a conference in Manchester in honour of Norman Geras. Marx and Rousseau is a surprisingly neglected topic in view of the affinities between their work. Surprising, that is, until you find out just how sparse the references to Rousseau are in the works of Marx and Engels. In fact, there’s only one decent paper on the topic in English, “Rousseau and Marx” by Robert Wokler, in The Nature of Political Theory (eds Miller and Siedentop) published in 1983. In it Wokler says that there’s no direct evidence that Marx ever read Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality (Engels certainly did read it). Now the thought occured to me of trying to find out whether Marx had a copy in his personal library (not that that is a sign that a person has actually read something ). The trouble is, the most recent list is in a volume of the Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe, the volume discussed here . It isn’t in our library but it may be in yours. If so and you feel like saving me weeks of waiting for an inter-library loan, email your findings to chris at crookedtimber.org

Posted on March 9, 2004 09:46 PM UTC
Comments

Chris, I’ve looked through the catalog of the University of Michigan system, and nothing came up.

By any chance, do you have a (US) Library of Congress number?

The U/M catalog doesn’t mention ISBN’s.

Thanks,

Posted by Barry · March 10, 2004 12:59 PM

I’m afraid I don’t have a LoC number. Many thanks for looking Barry.

Posted by Chris Bertram · March 10, 2004 01:47 PM

hx276.m27684 is the loc number as best as i can make it out from my reference miner query to loc.

have you tried asking your topic librarian in your local library. when i call my social science librarian, he can sometimes get me the document i need, if i know what it is the same day. this is because he is on a list with other social science librarians and they help each other with things like this.

Posted by jeremy hunsinger · March 10, 2004 04:02 PM

You’re welcome, Chris. I’ve tried the LoC number, Jeremy, and came up with nothing, as well.

Posted by Barry · March 10, 2004 08:36 PM

Thanks also Jeremy. I’ve ordered it on ILL anyway, so I’ll probably get it in a week or so. I’ve also discovered another source for the same information.

Posted by Chris Bertram · March 10, 2004 11:01 PM

If you’ve ordered it ILL, you’ve probably already found this out, but in case not…

According to OCLC Worldcat (based on an ISBN search), only 9 (member) libraries in the world own this: Harvard and McMaster in North America; National Library/U of Strasbourg Library and Otto Harrassowitz in Europe; Aichi Arts Center - Aichi Prefectural Library, Nihon U - Col of Int Relations, Tama Art U Library, Aomori Pub U, and Kokugakuin U Library in Asia.

Good thing you found another source, as ILL might be a long wait, depending on where you are.

Posted by lollius · March 11, 2004 02:12 AM
Followups

This discussion has been closed. Thanks to everyone who contributed.