LOUIS ALTHUSSER (1918-1990) was a French Marxist philosopher. He was born in Algeria and studied at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, where he taught philosophy for many years.

John Sturrock called Althusser "the most prominent and innovative Marxist thinker of the postwar period in France."  He was a longtime member, and sometimes a strong critic, of the French Communist Party.  His arguments and thesis were set against the threats that he saw attacking the theoretical foundations of Marxism.  These included both the influence of empiricism on Marxist theory, and humanist and reformist socialist orientations which manifested as divisions in the European communist parties, as well as the problem of the "cult of personality" and of ideology.

Althusser is commonly referred to as a structural Marxist, although his relationship to other schools of French structuralism is not a simple affiliation and he was critical of many aspects of structuralism.  He is remembered today as the scourge of humanist Marxism -- famously pilloried by E. P. Thompson in his polemic "The Poverty of Theory" as "Geschichtenscheissenschlopff, unhistorical shit."

Althusser's life was marked by periods of intense mental illness. During one of his bouts in 1980, he strangled his wife to death.  He was committed to a psychiatric hospital and remained there until 1983. He died of a heart attack in October 1990 at the age of 72.


The following books are in PDF format:

* FOR MARX (Verso, 2005).  Translated by Ben Brewster.

* THE HUMANIST CONTROVERSY & OTHER WRITINGS (1966-67) (Verso, 2003).  Edited by François Matheron; translated with an Introduction by G. M. Goshgarian.

* LENIN AND PHILOSOPHY & OTHER ESSAYS (Monthly Review, 1971).  Translated by Ben Brewster.

* MACHIAVELLI AND US (Verso, 1999).  Edited by François Matheron; translated with an Introduction by Gregory Elliott.

* PHILOSOPHY OF THE ENCOUNTER: LATER WRITINGS, 1978-87 (Verso, 2006).  Edited by François Matheron and Oliver Corpet; translated with an Introduction by G. M. Goshgarian.

* THE SPECTRE OF HEGEL: EARLY WRITINGS (Verso, 1997).  Edited with an Introduction by François Matheron; translated by G. M. Goshgarian.