The Communist Manifesto (Penguin Pocket Hardbacks) - Hardcover

Engels, Friedrich; Marx, Karl

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0141395907 ISBN 13: 9780141395906

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 2014

Synopsis

A rousing call to arms whose influence is still felt today, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' The Communist Manifesto is edited with an introduction by Gareth Stedman-Jones in Penguin Classics.

Marx and Engels's revolutionary summons to the working classes, The Communist Manifesto is one of the most important political theories ever formulated. After four years of collaboration, they produced an incisive account of their idea of Communism, in which they envisage a society without classes, private property or a state, arguing that the exploitation of industrial workers will eventually lead to a revolution in which Capitalism is overthrown. This vision provided the theoretical basis of political systems in Russia, China, Cuba and Eastern Europe, affecting the lives of millions. The Communist Manifesto still remains a landmark text: a work that continues to influence and provoke debate on capitalism and class.

Gareth Stedman Jones's extensive and scholarly introduction provides an unique assessment of the place of The Communist Manifesto in history, and its continuing relevance as a depiction of global capitalism. This edition reproduces Samuel Moore's translation of 1888 and contains a guide to further reading, notes and an index.

Karl Marx (1818-1883) was born in Trier, Germany and studied law at Bonn and Berlin. He settled in London, where he studied economics and wrote the first volume of his major work, Das Kapital (1867, with two further volumes in 1884 and 1894). He is buried in Highgate Cemetery, London.

Friedrich Engels (1820-1895), as well as his collaboration with Marx, was the author of The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845), based on personal observations and research.

If you enjoyed The Communist Manifesto, you might like Marx's Capital, also available in Penguin Classics.

'The words of the Communist Manifesto flare like the fiery writing on the wall above the crumbling bastions of capitalist society: socialism or barbarism!'
Rosa Luxemburg

About this title

Review:

As a force for change, its influence has been surpassed only by the Bible. As a piece of writing, it is a masterpiece. Guardian
[T]he best possible explanation of what the world was about that I had ever read. It pointed out that the real conflicts in the world were not between black and white, men and women, Muslims, Christians and Jews, Americans, Russians and Chinese; it was about the conflict of economic interest between 95 per cent of the population of the world, who create the world s wealth, and the 5 per cent who own it. I think of Marx as a prophet: the last of the Old Testament prophets. And we should think of him as a teacher ... Karl Marx discovered it all long before I did, and I am very grateful to him. Tony Benn, The New Statesman"

"As a force for change, its influence has been surpassed only by the Bible. As a piece of writing, it is a masterpiece."--Guardian

"[T]he best possible explanation of what the world was about that I had ever read. It pointed out that the real conflicts in the world were not between black and white, men and women, Muslims, Christians and Jews, Americans, Russians and Chinese; it was about the conflict of economic interest between 95 per cent of the population of the world, who create the world's wealth, and the 5 per cent who own it. I think of Marx as a prophet: the last of the Old Testament prophets. And we should think of him as a teacher ... Karl Marx discovered it all long before I did, and I am very grateful to him."--Tony Benn, The New Statesman

Book Description:

Republished to mark the 200th anniversary of Marx's birth: the manifesto that set the world alight, now with a new introduction from the bestselling author and economist, Yanis Varoufakis

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0141395907
• ISBN 13: 9780141395906
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 432
• Editor: Stedman Jones Gareth