The Marx-Engels Reader

A knowledge of the writings of Marx and Engels is virtually indispensable to an educated person in our time, whatever his political position or social philosophy. For classical Marxism, as the thought of Marx and Engels may be called, has profoundly affected men’s views about history, society, economics, ideology, culture, and politics; indeed, about the nature of social inquiry itself. No other intellectual influence has so powerfully shaped the mind of modern left-wing radicalism in most parts of the world. Through classical Marxism, moreover, the left is linked to a greater intellectual tradition extending into the eighteenth-century French Enlightenment, German post-Kantian philosophy, English political economy, and early-nineteenth-century European socialism. Not to be well grounded in the writings of Marx and Engels is to be insufficiently attuned to modern thought, and self-excluded to a degree from the continuing debate by which most contemporary societies live insofar as their members are free and able to discuss the vital issues. This book offers the original writings needed to acquire a thorough grounding in Marxist thought, together with introductory notes to each selection, a chronology of the careers of the two men, and a concluding bibliographic guide to some of the literature about them and their thought

Friedrich Engels was born in 1820, in the German city of Barmen. He died in London in 1895 while editing the fourth volume of Capital.

Karl Marx studied law and philosophy at the universities of Bonn and Berlin, completing his doctorate in 1841. Expelled from Prussia in 1844, he took up residence first in Paris and then in London where, in 1867, he published his magnum opus Capital. A co-founder of the International Workingmen’s Association in 1864, Marx died in London in 1883.

Robert C. Tucker is professor of politics emeritus at Princeton University and past president of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies.