Michael Löwy

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Michael Löwy (born 1938 in Brazil, now a French citizen) is research director in sociology at the CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research) in Paris. He is an historian and a sociologist. He is also a mediator and a leftist activist. He has written widely on political philosophy and intellectual history. He teaches at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, in Paris, France.

Löwy is an eco-socialist. In 2001, with Joel Kovel, he wrote the Ecosocialist Manifesto.^[1] He is the author of many books, including The Marxism of Che Guevara, Marxism and Liberation Theology, Fatherland or Mother Earth?, The War of Gods: Religion and Politics in Latin America, Fire Alarm: Reading Walter Benjamin's "On the Concept of History" (2006, ISBN 1844670406), and The Theory of Revolution in the Young Marx (2005, ISBN 1931859191).

In a review of books about Walter Benjamin, including Löwy's Fire Alarm, Richard Wolin describes Löwy as being "of Trotskyist bent" and having "written extensively on twentieth-century Jewish political messianism."^[2] Löwy is a member of the reunified Fourth International.

As a sociologist and an historian, Löwy's books on Romanticism in the XIXth century, Surrealism in France, Messianism in Central Europa, Theology of Liberation in Latin America, and the heterodox Marxist sociology of religion are highly regarded for their academic value.^[who?] One of his most recent books is an essay on Franz Kafka.

Lowy's work has been translated in 28 languages.

[edit] Notes and references

• Richard Wolin, "A Metaphysical Materialist", The Nation, October 16, 2006, p. 30–35. Available online on the site of Agence Global.
• Joel Kovel and Michael Löwy, Ecosocialist Manifesto
• Michael Lowy, Franz Kafka, rêveur insoumis, Paris, Stock, 2004, 166 p.
• Michael Lowy, Sociologies et religion - Approches dissidentes, Paris, PUF, 2005 (with Erwan Dianteill)

[edit] External links

• Michael Löwy, a collection of his writings in International Viewpoint (produced under the auspices of the Fourth International).
• Franz Kafka and Libertarian Socialism by Michael Löwy (from New Politics, vol. 6, no. 3 (new series), whole no. 23, Summer 1997).
• Alternative Justice and Institutional Change, part 4 of a "Guest Presentation Series" on "Conflict Resolution and Peaceful Progressive Change." An audio recording of Michael Lowy and Craig Haney (UCSC Professor of Social Psychology).
• TrotskyanaNet provides a biographical sketch and a selective bibliography on Michael Löwy.
• An ecosocialist manifesto by Joel Kovel and Michael Lowy on Ozleft