Axel van den Berg is a Dutch-Canadian sociologist who is professor of sociology at McGill University in Montreal. His most recent work is Handbook of Political Sociology.

"This work is brilliant in its polemical courage, its originality, and its detailed and revealing examination of texts. Van den Berg demonstrates that postwar Marxist political theory and sociology is not only vague and contradictory but that it actually makes critical concessions to the 'bourgeois thought' it claims to surpass. Appearing in the midst of a far-reaching reconsideration of the Marxism project in Europe, this volume crystallizes these issues for North American social science..." - Jeffrey Alexander, University of California, Los Angeles. "Van Den Berg has made a major contribution to the long overdue relegation of Marxism to the museum of nineteenth century ideological antiquities." - Dennis Wrong, Contemporary Sociology.

• Introduction; 1: Marx and Engels on the State and Politics; 2: Marxism and Reformism; 3: The State as the Instrument of the Capitalist Class; 4: Structural Functionalism Revisited (1): Structuralism; 5: Structural Functionalism Revisited (2): Accumulation versus Legitimation; 6: The State and the Class Struggle: Dynamics Restored?; 7: Conclusion: From the Marxist Theory of the State to the State of Marxist Theory

Axel van den Berg is a Dutch-Canadian sociologist who is professor of sociology at McGill University in Montreal. His most recent work is Handbook of Political Sociology.

"This work is brilliant in its polemical courage, its originality, and its detailed and revealing examination of texts. Van den Berg demonstrates that postwar Marxist political theory and sociology is not only vague and contradictory but that it actually makes critical concessions to the 'bourgeois thought' it claims to surpass. Appearing in the midst of a far-reaching reconsideration of the Marxism project in Europe, this volume crystallizes these issues for North American social science..." - Jeffrey Alexander, University of California, Los Angeles. "Van Den Berg has made a major contribution to the long overdue relegation of Marxism to the museum of nineteenth century ideological antiquities." - Dennis Wrong, Contemporary Sociology.

• Introduction; 1: Marx and Engels on the State and Politics; 2: Marxism and Reformism; 3: The State as the Instrument of the Capitalist Class; 4: Structural Functionalism Revisited (1): Structuralism; 5: Structural Functionalism Revisited (2): Accumulation versus Legitimation; 6: The State and the Class Struggle: Dynamics Restored?; 7: Conclusion: From the Marxist Theory of the State to the State of Marxist Theory