Rating: 
Summary: A Representative Reader
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: From Human Nature to Revolution
Review: This book is a MUST for anyone who seeks a well-rounded understanding of Marx. It is ordered in an ascending fashion, starting from his initial ideas about his absolutist materialist ideologie in his early academic years, down to the culminating work of the Communist Manifesto as an outcast revoutionary. It is structured in such an intelligent and convenient way that the reader can feel like he is holding hands with Marx and his intellectual development.What I find most fascinating about Marx's style of writing is that while it is subtle, sophisticated, and academic his audience was geared for the masses. In other words, the writing has a strong activist tone to it. And he gets away with much of his merciless attacks and accusations against capitalism and the bourgeois since he wrote outside of the insitutional setting. It has been a refreshing experience to read a scholar who is so daring and bold. Marx, in my eyes, completely represents intellectual freedom bounded by the human spirit alone, and not by insitutional, political, or economic structures and agendas. Marx-Engels reader provides intellectual and spiritual refreshment in every sense of the word.
Rating: 
Summary: A good introduction to Marxism
Review: This book is not only an excellent introduction to Marxism, it also provides enough imformation to continue your studies to a fairly advanced level. It contains extensive extracts from Marx's early philosophical writings, and shows the way in which his thought developed, eventually culminating in the hard-headed economist that wrote Capital. However, because of the format of the book (ie. that it only provides extracts from Marx's works) it would be necessary to buy some of the individual books mentioned to get a more detailed analysis of his thought.
Rating:
Summary: On of the best compilations of the Marxist point of views...
Review: 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.
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