Althusser and the Renewal of Marxist Social Theory
Robert Paul Resch
University of California Press
The writings of the French Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser and   his associates have figured prominently in the development of contemporary   social theory. The Althusserian school of Structural Marxism is a startlingly   original synthesis of Marxism and Modernism, which has produced a large body of   work that extends across the human sciences and the humanities to engage a wide   variety of cultures, theoretical problems, and political issues. Despite the   fact that Althusser himself is widely recognized as a major figure, the breadth,   coherence, and achievements of Structural Marxism as a whole have gone largely   unrecognized.  In this, the most systematic and wide-ranging assessment of Structural Marxism   in any language, Resch provides a comprehensive and thematic introduction to the   work of Althusser, Nicos Poulantzas, Pierre Macherey, Etienne Balibar, Emmanuel   Terray, Terry Eagleton, Gran Therborn, Rene Balibar, Perry Anderson, Pierre-  Philippe Rey, Michel Pchaux, Guy Bois, and others. Resch's sympathetic and   critical study demonstrates the enormous significance of Althusser's modernist   renewal of Marxist social theory and its ongoing challenge to post-Marxist   movements such as postmodernism and neo-liberalism.