Rating: 
Summary: The best collection we have
Review: "The Marx-Engels Reader" is the best single collection of Marx's thought. What makes it doubly important, is that it is one of the few texts which contain an index. This sounds unremarkable, but believe me, it makes the text extremely more useful. This book transcends the state of being a mere anthology, and is an indespensible reference work.Make sure you get the second edition.
Rating:
Summary: The best collection we have
Review: "The Marx-Engels Reader" is the best single collection of Marx's thought. What makes it doubly important, is that it is one of the few texts which contain an index. This sounds unremarkable, but believe me, it makes the text extremely more useful. This book transcends the state of being a mere anthology, and is an indespensible reference work. Make sure you get the second edition.
Rating:
Summary: The best collection we have
Review: "The Marx-Engels Reader" is the best single collection of Marx's thought. What makes it doubly important, is that it is one of the few texts which contain an index. This sounds unremarkable, but believe me, it makes the text extremely more useful. This book transcends the state of being a mere anthology, and is an indespensible reference work. Make sure you get the second edition.
Rating:
Summary: Essential Works Of Marxs & Engels For the Beginner!
Review: Given the impact of Marxism on the unfolding history of the later nineteenth and twentieth century, the beginning student of the combined writings of both Marx and Engels will find this collection of the essential works of these two pioneering socialists absolutely essential reading. Its list of included works covers the waterfront of all that is required to gain a fruitful first look at the wealth of their philosophical musings, and the nature of their revolutionary canon, as well. Reading this material is essential if one is to understand the depth of Marx's understanding and the detail of his genius, however discredited he may be in current estimations. Indeed, with the rise of international corporatism is so close to his prognostications regarding the final phases of capitalism that it is hard to deny his continuing relevance. Included here is everything from the Communist Manifesto all the way to Volume One of Das Capital. One can gain a better appreciation for his ideas regarding the way in which the antagonism between the oppressed and the oppressors provides the motive force for history, and how all history is the history of such class struggles between the owners of the means of production, on the one hand, and the workers, who have nothing to barter with but their considerable capacity to accomplish labor. If one want to gain a better appreciation for the nuances regarding how alienation is created buy the organization of work, or the origin of property, or even the ways in which all of the aspects of a particualr society's culture are manifestations of the values of the ruling class, then a careful reading of the material found here will serve you well. I highly recommend this book. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: A Very Comprehensive Introduction
Review: I highly recommend this for anyone, although it should prove especially invaluable to students of many disciplines. Marx's work continues to be a great resource for political economists, literary theorists, men and women all over the world who want to better understand their lives and how to change them. The previous reviewer appears to have never read, or even opened, this book. Not to say everyone will agree with Marx, but it's important to engage with his ideas, to challenge them; instead, the reviewer makes ill-founded judgments based on a poor historical understanding of the socialist states. I highly suggest this book as an introduction to a key figure in the motivating forces of the twentieth century, and in the future.
Rating:
Summary: A Very Comprehensive Introduction
Review: I highly recommend this for anyone, although it should prove especially invaluable to students of many disciplines. Marx's work continues to be a great resource for political economists, literary theorists, men and women all over the world who want to better understand their lives and how to change them. The previous reviewer appears to have never read, or even opened, this book. Not to say everyone will agree with Marx, but it's important to engage with his ideas, to challenge them; instead, the reviewer makes ill-founded judgments based on a poor historical understanding of the socialist states. I highly suggest this book as an introduction to a key figure in the motivating forces of the twentieth century, and in the future.
Rating:
Summary: Exquisite collection of Marx's writings.
Review: If you're a person that is presently trying to decide where you should start out in your study of Marxism, this book is probably where you "should" start. The Marx-Engels reader has every conceivable work that should be read by any prospective Communist, or anti-Communist. It's all here, the Communist Manifesto, Capital Volume 1, the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, the origin of family, private property and the state, and so on, and so on. The format of the book has the writings of Marx-Engels in such a way, that a person can see the development of their ideas with, at the very least, some degree of efficiency. From the greed of the borgeoisie and the petty-borgeoisie, to the struggle of proletariat and the lumpen-proletariat. For a proletarian such as myself, this is the next best thing to purchasing Marx's collected works(it took me forever just to afford the extraordinary cost of Lenin's collected works). Currently, the ebb in revolutionary Marxism seems to indicate Marx was completely false in his description of Capitalism as a decadent system, but the fact is, Marxism is still a political force(whether "Cold Warriors" want to admit it or not), with prominent intellectuals such as Stephen Jay Gould and Cornel West being a few indivuals who are proponents of the ideaology. For a person who takes the time to look at the statistics, the middle class is completely vanishing, the disproportionate amount of wealth in the hands of the borgeoisie seems analogous to Lenin's description of 1890's Russia(I am referring to his masterful work, "New Economic Developments in Peasant Life, Volume 1, Collected Works", but in an advanced capitalist society such as the US, replace the word "peasant" with "proletarian"), the majority of the population are exponentially less prosperous than the minority of the population. To conclude, any educated person, whether they be right-wingers, left-wingers, or extremists, should read this book. With the surprising success of Gennady Zyuganov in Russia, the very large socialist movement in the US, and of course, with the most populous country on Earth being a Communist nation, a rudimentary understanding of Marxism should be "necessary". In addition to the "Marx-Engels" reader, a person should read some of Lenin's more notable works, such as "What is to be Done?", "Who the Friends of the People are, and how they fight the social democrats", and "State and Revolution".
Rating:
Summary: Good compilation
Review: Marx and Engels wrote an absolutely tremendous amount of the most diverse topics of society possible. This reader does a good job of putting together some representative readings, starting from their most famous "The Communist Manifesto", going into his analysis of revolutions and conditions in many different countries, including France, India, Russia, etc., finally reaching into topics such as family and morality (mainly addressed by Engels). Though not a Marxist myself, I found this compilation a very comprehensive view of their thinking. It should be sufficient to anyone not seeking to write a dissertation on their thinking.
Rating:
Summary: Good compilation
Review: Marx and Engels wrote an absolutely tremendous amount of the most diverse topics of society possible. This reader does a good job of putting together some representative readings, starting from their most famous "The Communist Manifesto", going into his analysis of revolutions and conditions in many different countries, including France, India, Russia, etc., finally reaching into topics such as family and morality (mainly addressed by Engels). Though not a Marxist myself, I found this compilation a very comprehensive view of their thinking. It should be sufficient to anyone not seeking to write a dissertation on their thinking.
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.
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