The Marxist Conception of Ideology

'The author's scholarship is immense. He has included an amazing range of writings in the scope of a short book and taken the reader on a guided tour de force through the murky forests of the literature about ideology and Marxism, both original and critical. One emerges from the experience with a heightened sense of the ingenuities of Marxists, but depressed by how little progress they have made towards a comprehensive and consistent theory of ideology. As a bonus Seliger gives one innumerable insights into the problems of the relationship of thought to social conditions and that of truth to social thought, which ideology as a concept tries to span.' Z. A. Pelczynski, The Times

• A prefatory note and acknowledgments; Introduction; Part I. The Sin of Overstatement: 1. The problem and the basic contradiction; 2. The facets of orthodox Marxist doctrine; 3. Distorted and adequate thought; 4. The pressure of facts; Part II. The Redemption of Ideology: 5. Unacknowledged and acknowledged modification; 6. An interim balance; 7. Ideology beyond economic causation; 8. The way out of the vicious circle: Mannheim; Part III. Perspectives, Changing and Persisting: 9. Class and ideology; 10. Ideology pluralism; 11. The range and depth of analogy; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.