...responsibility for its contents is completely my own. Highland Park, New Jersey March 2003 Introduction Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly found,...

...events." Karl Marx offered this brilliantly succinct one-liner (from The Eighteenth Brumaire): "Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly found,...

...may be among the most hackneyed of so97 cial analysis, but no less shrewd for its overuse: "Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly found,...

...features as technology, forms of property, class barriers, state institutions, and ideology. 'Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly found,...

...not make their choices in a vacuum. As Marx argued in a much-quoted passage, men (and women) do make their own history, but they 'do not make it just as they please: they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves' (Marx 1968: 98). The developing roles...

...ought at least to prevent it smothering us beneath its dead weight. The Rise of the Asylum Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered,...

...leadership, Marx proclaimed his well-known dictum about the limits to autonomous political action: Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered,...

...celebrated words of Karl Marx's maxim enunciated in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte: "Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly found,...

...warrants attention, not from any "great man" theory of history but from the recognition that "men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered,...

...effect underscores the difference between individual and social ideas. As Marx famously noted, "Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please . . . but under circumstances transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs...