Rating: 
Summary: Interesting if abrasive food for thought!
Review: "What is supposed to be my concern. First and foremost the Good Cause, then God's Cause, the cause of mankind, of truth, of freedom, of humanity, of justice; further, the cause of my people, my prince, my fatherland; finally, even the cause of my mind. Only MY cause is never to be my concern. 'Shame on the egoist who thinks only of himself.'" In this, the first paragraph of his powerful book, Max Stirner sets the stage. His cause? 'Nothing.' His goal? To stop at nothing. In The Ego and It's Own (more literally translated to The Person and His Property) Stirner tries making the case for anarchism based on individualism, rebelling against the collectivist strand professed by Proudhon and Godwin before him. When Stirner says he 'base[s his] cause on nothing,' what is meant. Simply, he takes nothing (even our supposed self evident truths like right to life) as givens. Everything is questionalbe; nothing immune. So really, this book is not for the squeamish. First, he takes apart religion for setting a 'transcendental' cause higher than the individual. Then he attacks the concept of the state- and socialism- for doing the same. Then he takes apart concepts of 'rights' becuase without a god to grant them and a state to inforce them, what right do I have to live if you kill me? To clarify, Stirner does believe in cooperation for each party's benefit; just not coerced in ANY way. While Stirner is said to be a precursor to Nietzsche, there is no evidence that Nietzsche knew of him. In fact, the biggest influence he might've had (in print) is Marx's 300 page(!) critique of Stirner in his German Ideology. I've not read it, but it's clear that Marx has a lot to wrestle with. Now for the subtracted star. Stirner, while being an egoist, is somewhat of an egotist. He repeats the same things many times and a reader would not miss much if she cut out 150 pages early. Secondly, and it must be said, Stirner is not profound because he is philosophically challenging. He is not; then again neither are most anarchists. He is profound because he has the gumption to say what no one else will. He even questions why it is considered bad to sleep with one's sister. Can we argue? Hmmm.... What are you staring at me for, read the book already!
Rating: 
Summary: -- "The Fourth Dimension of Ethics" --
Review: "The Ego and His Own", the testament of the philosophic incendiary Max Stirner, remains, one hundred and fifty years after its appearance, the most subversive, the most antisocial, the most radical book in the history of political thought. Writing in a highly idiosyncratic idiom, Stirner launches an extreme and uncompromising attack on Christianity, the state, society, the family, socialism and revolts against the monarchy of abstract ideas, as exemplified by the entire rational tradition of Western philosophy. His book represents the culmination of Left Hegelianism. In the place of moral imperatives, he postulates the will of the sovereign egoist, who lives untrammelled by convention or authority. Rights, obligations, duties do not exist. The might of the ego is the sole determining factor in conduct. He takes his doctrine to its logical conclusion and, at times, to its illogical extreme by urging reasons for crime against all institutions and in the egoist's bid for power in the war of each against all, the arena of which is the embattled socius. He has been interpreted as a harbinger of Fascism and, among other things, an important proto-Nietzschean thinker. He bears many resemblances to his successor Nietzsche, as in how he champions egoism, celebrates the passions, and also in his call for a transvaluation of existing values and the need to create one's life anew. But there is a crucial difference: Stirner, a disciple of Hegelian idealism, is critical; Nietzsche, assertive. Stirner's egoism is spontaneous and capricious while Nietzsche's semi-altruistic egoism always has the highest social end in view. A must for those who want to discover a forgotten classic of political thought.
Rating:
Summary: A life-changing tome
Review: Beyond freedom and over the spooks we go. Our goal: nothing short of godhood. In the palace of the mind, in the gut, and in the "real world" we devour all alien elements and make them our playthings. Easily the most dangerous book ever written--required reading for all those that would be Egoists.
Rating:
Summary: Impassioned and inspiring.
Review: He has been variously interpreted as an anarcho-egoist, an early existentialist, a protofascist who influenced the thought of Mussolini, a frontrunner of Nietzsche and as a nihilist maniac whose thirst for blood could never be quenched... an iconoclast who aimed to live above society, untramelled by moral conventions... In his defence of the sovereignty of the individual will, Max Stirner launches a brutal and uncompromising assault on the state, society, religion, the family. Also one of the most potent criticisms of humanism, liberalism and communism put forward, Stirner was one of the first to accurately prophesy the tyranny that communism would engender once established. Stylistically, it ranges from cutting aphoristic precision to opaqueness,self-contradiction and repetition, but nonetheless a profound, stimulating presentation of a highly eccentric position of political thought.
Rating: 
Summary: The ego as a dead end.
Review: I can only compare this book to great works in the field of philosophy. Hegel and Schopenhauer started writing before this book was written, and both were famous for being slower than their peers to impress anyone. Hegel and Stirner wrote anonymous articles in journals before publishing a large major work. It still isn't clear to some people what Hegel's philosophy was supposed to accomplish, and students took a lot of notes at his lectures, trying to figure it out. For Max Stirner, THE EGO AND ITS OWN was his only major accomplishment, and it doesn't seem that hard to figure out. The education of Max Stirner, as outlined on pages xxxiii-xxxiv, included philosophy at the University of Berlin, University of Erlangen, University of Konigsberg, completion of formal studies at the University of Berlin, but after taking oral exams, was only awarded a conditional status and spent an unpaid probationary year teaching, "followed by a period of private study and irregular work." He was a teacher "at a respectable private girls' school in Berlin" from 1839 to 1844, when his book was published. Compared to the brilliant writings of Nietzsche, the contents of this book seem to me more like the fate of philosophy that has fallen into the hands of a Lutheran. Of a fellow philosopher who sought to liberate our thinking, this book says, "But from this it also appears how thoroughly theological is the liberation that Feuerbach is labouring to give us." (p. 33). I can relate to that kind of thinking, but Max Stirner doesn't accomplish much for himself until he gets to the second part of the book: I Ownness (pp.141-154) II The owner (pp. 155-319) III The unique one (pp. 320-324). Isaiah Berlin, in his book KARL MARX, notices how closely Marx and Max Stirner associated with the same people, though Marx thought of them as "three sordid peddlers of inferior metaphysical wares" (Berlin, p. 105) and wrote of Max Stirner, "Under the title of St Max he is pursued through seven hundred pages of heavy-handed mockery and insult." (Berlin, p. 106). The idea of a man being master of himself is called a "doctrine, which had a great influence on Nietzsche and probably on Bakunin (perhaps because it anticipated Marx's own economic theory of alienation too precisely), is treated as a pathological phenomenon, the agonised cry of a persecuted neurotic, belonging to the province of medicine rather than that of political theory." (Berlin, p. 106). At least Berlin isn't talking about religion. Max Stirner is listed in the index of THE SOCIOLOGY OF PHILOSOPHIES by Randall Collins and occupies such an interesting place in Figure 14.2. Young Hegelians and Religious/Political Radicals, 1835-1900: DIE FREIEN and the Nihilists (Collins, p. 766) that I expected this book to fill me on on the details about a lot of people. Martin Luther is mentioned by Max Stirner about six times in the text of THE EGO AND ITS OWN, but the mystery of his importance is not as clear as the confusion leading up to his appearance near the end, with a paragraph before, about "There are crazy people who imagine that they are God the Father, God the Son, or the man in the moon, and so too the world swarms with fools who seem to themselves to be sinners; but, as the former are not the man in the moon, so the latter are ~ not sinners." (Stirner, p. 317). Sometimes Nietzsche wrote in that same style.
Rating:
Summary: Those rantings makes good eatin'
Review: I'll dispense with the summary and just say that the book was interesting as a historical footnote. I certainly find it to be an awe inspiring book in its ability to inspire psuedo-anarchist rantings. Between this and Kropotkin's Conquest of Bread few books seem to have inspired so many middle-aged capitalists to forego their mid-life crisis Corvettes and dive into the selfishness of a fascism covered in the guise of anti-establishment philosophy. Pesonally, I read it as historical precedent for the attack on systematic philosophies and a precursor to the nebulous nihilism of our day. As a left wing socialist 'kook', I found it to cast an interesting light on the internal war between our current passive, laissez faire nihilism and our more ideological desire to act (that was at least why I read it). As any 'anti-whatever' book, it is more interesting to read then anyone who painstakingly creates a thoughtful thesis. Hegel may have been a genius but it certainly is less amusing to read then this or Nietzsche- that may be why we have so many undeveloped minds becoming anarchists or whatever, it's easy to read.
Rating:
Summary: Those rantings makes good eatin'
Review: I'll dispense with the summary and just say that the book was interesting as a historical footnote. I certainly find it to be an awe inspiring book in its ability to inspire psuedo-anarchist rantings. Between this and Kropotkin's Conquest of Bread few books seem to have inspired so many middle-aged capitalists to forego their mid-life crisis Corvettes and dive into the selfishness of a fascism covered in the guise of anti-establishment philosophy. Pesonally, I read it as historical precedent for the attack on systematic philosophies and a precursor to the nebulous nihilism of our day. As a left wing socialist 'kook', I found it to cast an interesting light on the internal war between our current passive, laissez faire nihilism and our more ideological desire to act (that was at least why I read it). As any 'anti-whatever' book, it is more interesting to read then anyone who painstakingly creates a thoughtful thesis. Hegel may have been a genius but it certainly is less amusing to read then this or Nietzsche- that may be why we have so many undeveloped minds becoming anarchists or whatever, it's easy to read.
Rating:
Summary: A Classic!
Review: Max Stirner is a forgotten great thinker who seems to be experiencing a renaissance - particularly as a precursor to Nietzsche, Rand and anarchism. The author of a single book, he stands as the most solid individualist thinker and moral critic I have ever come across. Hegelian scholar Lawrence Stepelevich of Villanova University characterizes Stirner as both the ultimate Hegelian and as the anti-Hegel; the end of the Hegelian chain. Given Hegelianism's pretenses to being a conclusive philosophy, it might be tempting to say Stirner is thereby the end of philosophy. That, however, would be wrong. But to say that Stirner is the end of *moral* philosophy would be to the point; the Stirnerian critique of morality has a strength that I have yet to see a moral philosophy withstand. His is not a freshman-nihilistic "Can you prove morality?" type of critique, but rather a critique of the necessary inherent assumptions of any moral philosophy. These are strong words to say about any book. In Stirner's case, they are deserved. Have an enjoyable reading!
Rating:
Summary: .The State Versus Me.
Review: Max Stirner was ahead of the game, to say the least. <Ego and Its Own> was published when Nietzsche was a mere toddler and prior to Marx's reign as political guru. Stirner beat both philosophical sages to the gun at what would later come to be known as Marxism and Christian Nihilism. Then why is the name "Stirner" hardly heard in the realm of philosophy? In many cases Stirner is abrasive and objectively unsympathetic to his audience (moreso than Rand ever thought of being). Stirner wasn't nearly as lucid as Nietzsche, though his themes were conducive to the latter's thought. As far as Marx is concerned, Stirner dictated what would later become Marxism and went 12 steps further and renounced it. Stirner is a staunch advocator of liberal anarchism, renouncing property via individualism a la Rand. Though it is marketed as a political tract, the work transcends the boundaries of mere politics and becomes a universal thesis in the vein of Machiavelli's <The Prince.> This is a work of vast stature, covering the realms of theology, sociology, psychology, politics, and aesthetics. A must read for all thinkers.
Rating:
Summary: Marx, Nietzsche, and Rand on a Drunken Diatribe
Review: Max Stirner was ahead of the game, to say the least. was published when Nietzsche was a mere toddler and prior to Marx's reign as political guru. Stirner beat both philosophical sages to the gun at what would later come to be known as Marxism and Christian Nihilism. Then why is the name "Stirner" hardly heard in the realm of philosophy? In many cases Stirner is abrasive and objectively unsympathetic to his audience (moreso than Rand ever thought of being). Stirner wasn't nearly as lucid as Nietzsche, though his themes were conducive to the latter's thought. As far as Marx is concerned, Stirner dictated what would later become Marxism and went 12 steps further and renounced it. Stirner is a staunch advocator of liberal anarchism, renouncing property via individualism a la Rand. Though it is marketed as a political tract, the work transcends the boundaries of mere politics and becomes a universal thesis in the vein of Machiavelli's This is a work of vast stature, covering the realms of theology, sociology, psychology, politics, and aesthetics. A must read for all thinkers.
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