SOURCE: “In the Name of Marx: The Philosopher and the Fight,” in The Times Literary Supplement, No. 1966, October 7, 1939, p. 570.

In the following excerpt a reviewer praises Berlin's study of Karl Marx.

Mr. Berlin has packed a great deal into this scholarly and admirably written little volume [Karl Marx: His Life and Environment]. It is a biographical sketch, a vividly condensed study of the background of ideas and personalities against which Marx's labours grew to maturity, a summary of the theory and the diverse implications of historical materialism and a review of Marx's historic achievement. In all these respects the book is a model of objective clarity. One could wish that Mr. Berlin had a taste for shorter sentences, but on the other hand it must be said that his elaborate and almost neo-Augustan precision of style is not without charm.

Whatever else he might be, Marx declared towards...