Product Description

Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves – and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives – and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization, and helped make us who we are.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #118707 in Books
• Published on: 2004-09-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

About the Author
Karl Marx was born in Trier, Germany and studied law at Bonn and Berlin. In 1848, with Freidrich Engels, he finalized the Communist Manifesto. He settled in London, where he studied economics and wrote the first volume of his major work, Das Kapital (1867, two further volumes were added in 1884 and 1894). He is buried in Highgate Cemetery, London. Friedrich Engles was born in Barmen, Germany. From 1842 he lived mostly in England.

Customer Reviews

You have nothing to lose but your sanity
Being a firm believer in only arguing on subjects you know about, I had hoped that this edition of the Communist Manifesto would fire up the old brain cells and be enjoyable as well. Unfortunatly, it seems that Penguin decided to try and bamboozle as many people as possible.

The slim volume is mostly taken up with introductions to every Eastern European edition printed and a separate piece by Karl Marx which was not part of the original Manifesto. The Manifesto istelf is only a few pages long - fair enough, seing as how it was only ever intended to be a pamphlet, not a book to be shown off and admired. But the revolutionary text which shaped so much of the modern world is sandwiched between repetition and ramblings, with no hint of Russian or Chinese background, no annotation and no mention of the impact these few pages had on society, save for a brief mention by Engels in one of the later prefaces.

The Manifesto is very interesting to read with hindsight, and makes some cohesive and thought-inducing points about the distribution of power in society, but as a whole is quite idealistic and unpractical, making it quite heavy-going.

Interesting when read as a supplement to prior knowledge about the politcal climates of the early 20th century, this edition of the Communist Manifesto is useful for scholars and those who can concentrate, simplify, think and criticize at the same time.

Thought provoking
If you are in any way interested in C19th intellectual thinking then this is a must read. And when you have finished it, think of today's economic climate and wonder 'what if?' In theory Marx and Engels seem to present us with the blueprint for the ideal society; in practice, however, it may be nigh on impossible to implement successfully