In 1961 he received a scholarship for a doctorate in Paris, France, which he did under the guidance of the well-known Marxist philosopher and sociologist of culture Lucien Goldmann, who had a lasting influence on his views. He received his PhD in 1964, with a thesis on "The Young Marx’s Theory of Revolution", at the Sorbonne.
Soon afterwards Löwy went to Israel where his family had migrated. He learned Hebrew and became a lecturer in political philosophy at the University of Tel Aviv, but his political views led to problems, and the University refused to renew his contract in 1968. He was invited - in an act of solidarity - to lecture at the University of Manchester, where he became assistant to the sociologist and founder of the New Left, Peter Worsley (1968–1969).
In 1969 Löwy returned to Paris to work with Nicos Poulantzas at the University of Paris VIII (Vincennes), and from that moment on established himself definitively in France. In the 1970s he worked, under the direction of Louis-Vincent Thomas, on his Habilitation (doctorat d’état) on György Lukács, presented in 1975 at the University of Paris V (Descartes), and graduated with honours. Löwy lectured in sociology at the University of Paris VIII till 1978 when he was admitted as a researcher at the CNRS.
The methodological orientation of his research was inspired by Lucien Goldmann's writings -particularly The Hidden God, 1955)- whose approach, associating sociology and history, heterodox Marxism and German sociology, the internal study of cultural works and their connexion to the social structure, served him as starting point.
In spite of the diversity of its thematic contents, most of Michael Löwy writings, since his PhD on Marx till now, belong to a sociology of culture, of Marxist/historicist orientation. Inspired by Lukács and Lucien Goldmann, they also refer to the great tradition of German sociology, from Weber to Karl Mannheim. Their aim is to analyse, interpret and explain the relations between cultural phenomena -particularly religious and political– by situating them in precise social and historical contexts.
He cooperated with left currents of the Brazilian Workers' Party (PT) for several years but during recent years[when?] his main contact has been with the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement (MST), to whom he gave the money of the Prize Sergio Buarque de Hollanda which he received in 2000 for his book The war of Gods. Nowadays[when?] Löwy supports Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL), a left dissidence of PT.
Interested since his youth by Surrealism—he met the poet Benjamin Péret during a visit in Paris in 1958—Löwy joined the Paris Surrealist Group, by invitation of Vincent Bounoure, its main organizer since 1969. Two of his books are devoted to Surrealism, in its utopian and revolutionary dimension.
Publications
The Marxism of Che Guevara, New York, Monthly Review Press, 1973. (Second Edition : Rowman and Littlefield, 2007.
"Marxism and Revolutionary Romanticism". Telos 49 (Fall 1981). New York: Telos Press.
Georg Lukács: from Romanticism to Bolchevism, London, Verso, 1981.
The politics of combined and uneven development. The theory of permanent revolution, London, Verso Books, 1981.
Redemption and Utopia. Libertarian Judaism in Central Europe, Stanford University Press, 1992.
Marxism in Latin America from 1909 to the Present, New Jersey, Humanities Press, 1992.
On Changing the World. Essays in political philosophy: from Karl Marx to Walter Benjamin, New Jersey, Humanities Press, 1993. (Also in Japanese and Persian).
The war of gods. Religion and Politics in Latin America, London, Verso, 1996.
Fatherland or Mother Earth? Essays on the national question, London, Pluto Press, 1998.
Morning Star. Surrealism, Marxism, Anarchism, Situationism, Utopia, Austin, University of Texas Press, 2000.
Romanticism against the Tide of Modernity (with Robert Sayre), Durham, Duke University Press, 2001.
Joel Kovel and Michael Löwy (2002), "Manifeste écosocialiste international".
Franz Kafka, rêveur insoumis, Paris, Editions Stock, 2004.
Fire Alarm. Reading Walter Benjamin’s ‘On the Concept of History' , London, Verso, 2005.
The Theory of Revolution in the Young Marx, Leiden/Boston, Brill, 2003.
Che Guevara, une braise qui brûle encore, with Olivier Besancenot, Paris, Mille et une nuits, 2007.