The most comprehensive one-volume collection in English of Marx's writings from 1835 to 1847, Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy and Society ranges broadly in subject - from the nature of religion to freedom of the press and to the relation of the state to democracy, from the humanistic critique of philosophical idealism to the 'alienation' of humanity and to the relation of communism to historical praxis. It features Easton and Guddat's own highly regarded translations (based on the best German editions as well as on the original manuscripts and first editions) and reveals differences as well as continuities between the 'young' and the 'old' Marx. A substantial introduction and detailed analytical headnotes indicate the significance and historical setting of each selection, as well as its relationship to Marx's other writings. With one exception ('Defense of the Moselle Correspondent') each article, chapter, or book section is presented in its entirety, without internal deletions.

Das Kapital, Karl Marx's masterwork, is the book that above all others formed the twentieth century. From Kapital sprung the economic and political systems that in our time dominated half the earth and for half a century kept the world on the brink of war. Even today, one billion Chinese remain in the power of the Marxist system.
Yet this important and powerful work has been passed over by many readers frustrated by Marx's difficult style and his preoccupation with nineteenth-century events of little relevance to today's reader.
Now Serge Levitsky presents a new revised version of this masterpiece, carefully retranslated for the modern reader and abridged to emphasize the political and philosophical core of Marx's work, while trimming away much that is now unimportant.
Here then is a fresh and highly readable version of a work whose ideas have influenced the lives of nearly every person alive today.

First published in French, Marx's The Poverty of Philosophy (1847) was composed during his years in Brussels, when he was developing his economic views and, through confrontations with the chief leaders of the working-class movement, establishing his intellectual standing.

In this classic work, which laid the foundation of ideas later developed in Capital, Marx polemicized against then premier French socialist, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Proudhon wanted to unite the best features of such contraries as competition and monopoly. He hoped to save the good features of economic institutions while eliminating the bad. Marx, however, declared that no equilibrium was possible between the antagonisms in any given economic system. Social structures were transient historical forms determined by the productive forces: 'The handmill gives you society with the feudal lord; the stream mill, society with the industrial capitalist.'

In this selection of the political writings of Karl Marx that predate the Communist Manifesto, excerpts from the 'Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right,' 'Points on the State and Bourgeois Society' and other writings are newly translated and arranged in a sequence that illuminates the development of his thought, while the introduction discusses the intellectual context of his theories. This volume will be an invaluable guide to the formation of one of the most influential doctrines in the history of political thought.

Records Marx's critical study of capitalism as an economic system and briefly evaluates his handling of the subject

Records Marx's critical study of capitalism as an economic system and briefly evaluates his handling of the subject