Books and Cooks West
February 2000
The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels
The Communist Manifesto by
Karl Marx
February 15, 2000, Time to be determined
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Amazon.com
"A spectre is haunting Europe," Karl Marx and Frederic Engels wrote in 1848, "the spectre of Communism." This new edition of The Communist Manifesto, commemorating the 150th anniversary of its publication, includes an introduction by renowned historian Eric Hobsbawm which reminds us of the document's continued relevance. Marx and Engels's critique of capitalism and its deleterious effect on all aspects of life, from the increasing rift between the classes to the destruction of the nuclear family, has proven remarkably prescient. Their spectre, manifested in the Manifesto's vivid prose, continues to haunt the capitalist world, lingering as a ghostly apparition even after the collapse of those governments which claimed to be enacting its principles.
The
Nation, Marshall Berman
Every paragraph breaks over us like a wave that leaves us shaking
from the impact and wet with thought. This prose evokes breathless
momentum, plunging ahead without guides or maps, breaking all boundaries,
precarious piling and layering of things, ideas and experiences.
Book
Description
A modern edition on the 150th anniversary of the Manifesto. The
Communist Manifesto, drafted on the eve of the 1848 revolutions, is the
most brilliant and incisive political text ever written; a work of great
literary power as well as historical insight. Eric Hobsbawm, whose writing
has brilliantly described the century and a half of history that has been
both shaped and illuminated by the Manifesto, presents it here. As the
"age of extremes" draws to an end and capitalism seems
everywhere to be triumphant, as it did one hundred and fifty years ago,
Eric Hobsbawm critically appraises a work which, he argues, is now more
timely than ever. Hobsbawm notes the curious fact that the Manifesto
remained a subterranean text for many decades and did not circulate on a
mass scale, or achieve a canonical status, until comparatively recently.
He argues that only the complete unfolding of capitalism on a global scale
in recent times allows us to take the full measure of Marx and Engels's
truly astounding mixture of passion, science and poetry.
The Books and Cooks The
Communist Manifesto Informal Reading Guide
(member-generated questions in no particular order)
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Compare Marx' arguments to those of the Seattle protesters. What was similar and what was different?
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Is it more important for a famous book to be "ageless" or to segue very closely with the concerns of the times in which it was written?
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How would Marx react to globalization, particularly as described in Thomas Friedman's The Lexus and the Olive Tree?
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Marx claimed that class boundaries would transcend other issues such as nationalism. Is this true?
