The Ego Made Manifest: Max Stirner, Egoism, and the Modern Manifesto

From Karl Marx to Wyndham Lewis, this book examines Max Stirner’s influence on the modern manifesto. Max Stirner has long proven to be an elusive figure at the fringes of 19th-century German idealism. He has been portrayed as the father of the philosophical dead end that was egoistic anarchism: a withered branch of an ineffectual movement, remembered largely because of its suggestion that crime was a valid form of revolutionary action. From this perspective, egoists subscribed to extreme forms of anarchism and defended acts of theft, assault, and even murder; egoism only held lasting appeal to rebels, nihilists, and criminals; and Stirner’s ideas could – and should – be consigned to the dustbin of history accordingly. The Ego Made Manifest argues that many of the accepted truisms about Stirner and his reception are false and that his contribution to modernist and avant-garde manifesto-writing traditions has been overlooked. Beginning with his influence on Marx’s Communist Manifesto, Wayne Bradshaw reinserts Stirner into the history of manifestos that not only rebelled against tradition but sought to take ownership of history, culture, and people’s minds. This study documents the trajectory of Stirner’s reception from mid-19th-century Germany to his rediscovery by German and American readers almost 50 years later, and from his popularity among manifesto writers in fin de siècle Paris to the birth of Italian Futurism. Finally, it considers how American and British interest in egoism helped inspire Vorticism’s satirical approach to revolt, and how, in an age of extremism, Stirner’s ideas continue to haunt the modern mind.

Table of Contents:
Preface Acknowledgments Introduction: Manifestations of the Ego 1. Germany: Stirner’s Conquest of the Self 2. France: The Rise of Literary Egoism 3. Italy: The Ascent of the Poet Tyrant 4. The Transatlantic Shift: Beyond Anarchism and Nationalism 5. England: From Imagism to Vorticism Conclusion: A History of Possession Works Cited Index

About the Author :
Wayne Bradshaw is Adjunct Research Fellow in the College of Arts, Society, and Education at James Cook University, Australia. He holds a PhD in literary studies and the history of ideas and researches egoism’s influence on modernist literature.

Review :
This work is a masterpiece in the history of ideas and on Max Stirner, a highly significant and all-too-neglected 19th-century figure. The breadth and depth of original scholarship is striking. Written in refreshingly clear and elegant prose, Bradshaw presents difficult and complex ideas with clarity and flair, balance and judgment. Stirner and egoism have always been at the heart of the historical avant-garde, and that is perhaps most evident in the anarchic, polemical spirit of the avant-garde manifesto. Bradshaw’s book is a vital and timely contribution to the study of the manifesto genre and early 20th-century intellectual culture. The ghost of Max Stirner walks! The spook of the rogue Hegelian, ostensibly exorcised forever by Karl Marx, returns again in Wayne Bradshaw’s magnificent study of Max Stirner's Egoism and the Modern Manifesto, The Ego Made Manifest. Though long overlooked, Stirner’s Egoist philosophy had a profound impact on European Modernism, in the formative years prior to WWI, and here Bradshaw adeptly traces its influence in Germany, France, Italy, US and United Kingdom, achieving the most complete international picture so far of this 'History of Possession.' As essential for gaining an understanding of Modernist theory and practice as the familiar entry-level knowledge concerning the stream-of-consciousness of William James, Stirner’s Egoism is as yet entirely unknown to the vast majority of readers, even to scholars in the field of Modernist Studies. Bradshaw’s wonderful book might well effect a profound reevaluation of everything we thought we knew about this subject. The Ego Made Manifest is a must-read for anyone with a serious interest in Modernist literature.