The introduction by David Drew is worth the value of the book alone. Drew situates and places Bloch's work profoundly within the ideologic framework of this century,most of which Bloch had lived through. Bloch's writings on music are not as nearly as fascinating as his historical excursions into the realm of utopia and the various forms that manifestation has takened within the human spirit.Yes! Music admirably inhabits one of these contemplative realms and regions,music representing a place a realm to be attained,as well as a document of its time. Bloch believed all this, and it's curious a man who was present at the birth of modernity, of Expressionism in Germany,Surrealism the theatre of Leftist content of Brecht and Piscator,curious that Bloch never mentioned,nor formulated essays on the formidable acheivements of modern music. His writings stand fairly within the predictability of Germanic music, Mozart operas, Beethoven and Bruckner,a neglected creator of symphonic boulders of post-romanticism. Creators like Debussy,Ravel,Schoenberg,Bartok or Stravinsky are hardly mentioned throughout his long life. Well music was an addendum, a marginal pursuit to him. Bloch knew the primary musicians of his day the conductor Otto Klemperer always looked up wherever Bloch was living within his numerous exiles. If you've read "The Principle of Hope" then these essays are merely supplements to that magnum opus in three volumes.

This is certainly Bloch's most important work. It has fascinating insights to Biblical stories, contemporary literature, etc. - it's as if Th. Adorno and Walter Benjamin had collaborated on an unusually wide-ranging and engrossing book. Highly recommended.

If Ernst Bloch was with us today he'd be quite honored that his work seems to have such a durable power,an edifice of ideologic thought where marketplace schemes of fashionable thinking refuse to erode it away. His utopian thought reminds me of the equally durable, enormous black-iron abstractions of sculptor Richard Serra. This is a great introduction to Bloch. As a musician myself I can only say that, I have always welcomed a formidable thinker whose thought includes the art of music within the spectrum of their thinking. Leonard Bernstein also was quite fascinated with Bloch,as well as composer Alexander Goehr. This is a comprehensive collection of essays dealing with Bloch's thought. Simultaneously it profiles and presents important questions at us reflecting Bloch's thought. One powerful idea of Bloch is his concept of temporality,that we all inhabit different times,and that our horizons are different,not ascending or progressing in a straight line irresprective if (on the surface) we seem to all desire identical objects and spiritual values . The essay on educator Paolo Freire, I found perhaps the most important, because it represents Bloch's work in the real world. Simply incessant interpretations of Marxist thought,which is what frequently occurs in thinkers such as Adorno,Benjamin,Lukacs is not what it is intended to be. Bloch's magnum opus "Das Prinzip Hoffnung" (Hope The Principle) is well traversed by editor Tom Moylan. In that work Bloch seized the whole of world culture to locate his concept of utopia as within the crevices of the various religions of the world,dime-novels of the Thirties,the symphony,rituals and dreams. Bloch has always had a special place within the spectrum of Marxist thinking continues to be true today. His thought represents for some the more dangerous aspects of Marx, the spiritual. How has this mainifested itself? has only been traversed simple-mindedly as in the search for "quasi-religious" icons of the Left, hammers and sickles,red flags,co! llectives,Bob Dylan songs,and portraits of revered leaders. Although Bloch supported the Soviet Union, the implications of his thought was light years away from that tyrannical cathechism of Georgian nationalism. The negative side of Bloch's thought was not an actively political one. In fact those who have been placed under the banner of Western Marxism as Adorno,Bloch,Lukacs,Colletti,and Benjamin were not political activist thinkers. Their thought rarely found a profound sequence of cause and effect,of consequences, as an appraisal of the correlation of power within the burdens of daily politics. That was the diluted side of their thought, And so with Bloch. His primary value was in his appraisal of the spirit,of the "Not Yet" within human existence within the dimensions of Marxism. His work today has relevance in that since we are in a process of redefining political involvement,in formulating issues, Bloch's work seems a profound source of thought as the world seems to becoming less predictable with globalization schemes.

It's incredible no one takened the time to review this magnum opus of one of the most important committed thinkers of our time. Bloch's life itself well traversed almost a century,seeing himself and participating in the early innovative artistic movements,Expressionism, the plays of Brecht,Schoenberg's 12 Tone Dodecaphonic means. He also carried diatribes with the likes of Gyorgy Lukacs, as well as writers he admired Anna Siegel. Utopia is a realm that never seems to go away. For Bloch it was a way of gaining distance with the world,in fashioning a path toward it yourself. He said someplace that we all inhabit our own durational frames, and that we develop, or come to see our horizons not simultaneously as we have been taught to believe. This massive three-volume work is a mere encyclopedia tracing where mankind has found its horizon,sometimes placing it theri aritficially, as in art. Goethe Faust has a prominent place here as well as early secular religions of the world, how each shares this vision of Utopia Bloch so impassioned voice seeks. Marx is here as well, and it was Bloch who for want of a better term, introduced the warmer side of the human spirit to into Marxist discourse. Bloch, as Adorno,Horkheimer,even Lukacs, were not really political animals,nor consummate players, so they each saw the Soviet Union as some hope, less Adorno,who was skeptical of everything. The early religious leader Thomas Munzer, Luther's arch enenmy during the burgeoning Reformation and the Peasant Wars is also a point of reference for Bloch. And music makes an entrance, however Bloch really never got to know modernist repertoire, his thoughts are abssorbed with the classics, Mozart,Beethovem Bruckner and Wagner all have places in his Utopian edifice.

This is a well arranged volume of the essays essential to Marxist criticism from the 1930's to the 1950's. The essayists are all critical contributions are summed-up, and their current relevance traced, in a brilliant conclusion by Frederic Jameson, perhaps the most important Marxist critic writing today. I like this volume because the choice of essays is great and the selections are placed in a chronological, point-counterpoint format so that the 'conversation' is easy to follow. The essays are mainly concerned with the realism/modernism dialectic. Lukacs lauds the realism of Balzac and Mann as the exemplary approach to historicism in the novel. Adorno posits that high modernism, though it seems apolitical, provides the most ominous image of capitalism, and that it is thus the more viable revolutionary aesthetic. The other essayists chart the space between these (seemingly) polarized perspectives and provide important insights into the more mystical (Benjamin) and pragmatic (Brecht) applications of Marxist theory. Adorno takes Benjamin to task for not thinking dialectically. And, between Brecht and Adorno, Lukacs takes a beating for his reactionary attachment to the bourgeois realist novel. But Benjamin and Lukacs are both vindicated in Jameson's balanced conclusion. This is a short but invaluable volume for anyone interested in Marxist aesthetic theory.

Bloch, as most people know, is an "esoteric marxist", like Lukács and Korsch. Esoteric marxism is a reaction against the official leninist-stalinist interpretation of Marx. In Bloch's view, the marxists have to re-interprete the religious phenomenon. Bloch says that inside christianism there is a feeling that also -in his view, I remark- informs marxist philosophy: hope. Both phenomenons, marxism and christianism, believe in a utopia that will become true in the future. "Where is religion, there is hope", says Bloch. This feeling can unite marxists ans christians, and has to be the base for a new dialogue. I have to say that Bloch vision of christianism, like the vision of any other functionalist, is reductionist. In his conception, christianism looses all trascendence. It is a "phenomenon", like any other. He says that religion is an expresion of protest, which every marxist has to respect -typical marxist interpretation-, but religion is much more than just a protest against the statu quo, and being religious means much more than just believing in a "utopia", that in the future will become true. Religion means to believe in God. Of course, Bloch doesn't believe in God, or in the inmortality of the soul. He only appreciates the external manifestation of faith, but the most important part -God, eternal life, holyness- are nonsense for him. Bloch vision of religion is the stereotype of functionalism.