The Marx-Engels Reader

Marx and Engels wrote an absolutely tremendous amount of the most diverse topics of society possible. This reader does a good job of putting together some representative readings, starting from their most famous "The Communist Manifesto", going into his analysis of revolutions and conditions in many different countries, including France, India, Russia, etc., finally reaching into topics such as family and morality (mainly addressed by Engels). Though not a Marxist myself, I found this compilation a very comprehensive view of their thinking. It should be sufficient to anyone not seeking to write a dissertation on their thinking.

Marx and Engels wrote so much that getting a handle on their ideas can be difficult. Of course, "The Communist Manifesto" is unbeatable as an introductory text. Indeed, it was their classic work. Not to worry, it's in the reader. So start with that, and if you feel the need to delve deeper into the philosophical underpinnings of Marxism (as Marx and Engels actually formulated it), you will have everything you need in this one book. Compact, representative, and with a good translation - it is the perfect book for those of us who would chose to understand these thinkers, without spending a lifetime in the library.

If you're a person that is presently trying to decide where you should start out in your study of Marxism, this book is probably where you "should" start. The Marx-Engels reader has every conceivable work that should be read by any prospective Communist, or anti-Communist. It's all here, the Communist Manifesto, Capital Volume 1, the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, the origin of family, private property and the state, and so on, and so on. The format of the book has the writings of Marx-Engels in such a way, that a person can see the development of their ideas with, at the very least, some degree of efficiency. From the greed of the borgeoisie and the petty-borgeoisie, to the struggle of proletariat and the lumpen-proletariat. For a proletarian such as myself, this is the next best thing to purchasing Marx's collected works(it took me forever just to afford the extraordinary cost of Lenin's collected works). Currently, the ebb in revolutionary Marxism seems to indicate Marx was completely false in his description of Capitalism as a decadent system, but the fact is, Marxism is still a political force(whether "Cold Warriors" want to admit it or not), with prominent intellectuals such as Stephen Jay Gould and Cornel West being a few indivuals who are proponents of the ideaology. For a person who takes the time to look at the statistics, the middle class is completely vanishing, the disproportionate amount of wealth in the hands of the borgeoisie seems analogous to Lenin's description of 1890's Russia(I am referring to his masterful work, "New Economic Developments in Peasant Life, Volume 1, Collected Works", but in an advanced capitalist society such as the US, replace the word "peasant" with "proletarian"), the majority of the population are exponentially less prosperous than the minority of the population.To conclude, any educated person, whether they be right-wingers, left-wingers, or extremists, should read this book. With the surprising success of Gennady Zyuganov in Russia, the very large socialist movement in the US, and of course, with the most populous country on Earth being a Communist nation, a rudimentary understanding of Marxism should be "necessary". In addition to the "Marx-Engels" reader, a person should read some of Lenin's more notable works, such as "What is to be Done?", "Who the Friends of the People are, and how they fight the social democrats", and "State and Revolution".

When I was a Political Science major in College, my professor, who knows more about Marxism then Marx himself, said one thing, get this book if you ever see it, regardless of the price. It has gone in and out of print and is a hard one to track down. It covers all of Marx's life and his phases, from the early days of exploring his as-yet undeveloped ideas, to his later exhaustive commentary on the new emerging Capitalist Economy. It doesn't try to tell you what Marx supposedly meant with meaningless, biased commentary; this work is simply a colection of his most important works, no more no less. It also includes much of the work that Engles added after Marx's death. And of course, it contains his Magus Opus, the Communist Manifesto. If you are a Political Science major, a philosphy lover, or just someone wanting an unadulterated sampling of what Marx really thought, then get this book.