A review by jakekilroy
The Communist Manifesto and Other Writings by Martin Puchner, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels

4.0

It's pretty astounding how grounded Marx and Engels write while relying so heavily on academic, economic, and political understanding in the reader of The Communist Manifesto It's not a breeze, but it's not a tornado either. It calmly, collectively, and quite astutely welcomes humankind as a community (that should abolish its higher ranks). It's wild to read this so many years later, as I know these perspectives as if they were chiseled in stone on the mountaintop, but I would've been hooting and hollering if I'd read this in 19th Century Germany. It ripped! As for the other writings, boy howdy, do I think you need a time machine to go back and live as a well-read socio-poly-econ dandy to get 'em. Marx's criticism pieces are sharp with a similar tone, and, more than anything, I may attribute what I missed or rerereread to its date of publication, not its communication of ideas. Marx just goes deep in the weeds while I shout "WHAT" from the library balcony.