Customer Reviews
Excellent Introduction - By: Mike Cormack, 12 Jun 2008 
This is quite the best introduction to Marx possible. While most books tends to go for one aspect of Marx - his economics, his philosophy, his ideas on foreign affairs - this books takes an overview. Kamenka judiciously edits sections of Marx's major writings & arranges them into seperate sections such as "Early Writings", "Political Writings", "Economics" etc. (It's been said about Marx that he fused English economics, French politics & German philosophy so these sections are apt).
Each sections presents an excellent selection from each phase of Marx's writing. For example, "Politics" contains the entire text of the "Communist Manifesto", perhaps the most stunning piece of political writing ever, as well as "The 18th Brumaire of Napolean" where Marx's talent for invective is put to good use. In his philosophical writings, the selections show Marx's transition from a Young Hegelian to a materialist conception of history, via the 1848 ("Paris") Manuscripts & the Grundrisse ("Outlines", where the Marx/Engels partnership first bears fruit). The "Early Writings" at the beginnings show Marx completely under the spell of Hegel, including Hegel's opacity: fortunately this recedes as time goes on. What is also extremely interesting is Marx's early letter to his father, where he conducts an astonishing survey of his intellectual development (and a temporary derangement), leading him to the point where he rejected (or rather inverted) Hegel.
Similarly, there are numerous letters & articles which give a flavour of Marx the man - an appallling letter from Marx's wife begging for money giving a grimly detailed of their early travails in London; letters from Marx to Engels about his writing for the New York Herald Tribune, asking for information; a detailed account of a meeting with Marx by a British security officer (as he would be callled now), after Marx came to prominence following the Second International; & details of his struggles with illness, Bakhunin, fatherhood & money (Marx, as he noted with grim amusement, wrote constantly about capital while having next to none of it himself).
This book is a wonderful introduction, to Marx the man, the thinker & the father of one of the most powerful movements ever. If you introduced with the thought of the twentieth century, you should read this. Many times over.
