Have you read a Karl Marx Book?

[Flake]

Yes

[Grumpier Than Thou]

Yes (slacktivist high school marxist)

[SWE]

Which wikipedia articles count?

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Nah, dawg.

[Boston Bread]

Nope, I think I will one day though.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I have read in them, nothing cover to cover.

[Panda Express]

Yeah, I had to read Communist Manifesto for my I.B. history class in high school. It was boring.

[Cranberry]

I'm thinking whether I should, probably Das Kapital if so.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Yes. Not just TNF does.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I read the Manifesto on my own back when I was a teenager still looking for ideological framework. I guess I agreed with the main point, but didn't find it a very compelling read.

[TNF]

I'm TNF (normal)

I've read a lot of Marx's work, which makes me question the opinion of everyone here saying that the Manifesto is boring. Have you guys tried tackling any of his other stuff? The Manifesto is but pleasant Sunday afternoon reading compared to a slog through Capital (which I still have yet to do but is on my list for this year) or The German Ideology. Marx is a good writer, but hard to follow if you don't stick your nose in it and force yourself to read it thoroughly. Luckily if you're trying to read Capital, David Harvey has a YouTube video companion series that guides you through it, which is what I'm going to have open as I read it this summer.

Engels' work is much more accessible, I'd argue. On the Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State is probably the most accessible classical Marxist work, and Engels' diatribes against the anarchists always make for a fun read, because Engels never really pulls in any punches (not that Marx did either, but there's just something about how Engels tears them limb from limb that gets me all giddy). Lenin's works are pretty accessible, though I think as far as more recent Marxists go Trotsky has the best grip of how to write for a popular audience while also not shirking from the heavy, theoretical stuff. His background in journalism probably helps as far as that is concerned.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Sure.

Kapital and the Manifesto, was relevant to its time.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The Communist Manifesto is a good read, though you need to be aware that it a) features a veritable menagerie of entirely mythological foes that Marx nevertheless bravely battles with and b) was written at a time when the process of industrialisation was not even finished in Britain let alone the rest of Europe. I would suggest that anyone with a degree of interest in the history of politics ought to read it; certain things (an example would be the popular appeal of Marxism before 1917) will never really make any sense unless you do.

The other stuff is really only to be read if you have a serious interest in the history of the Left. It isn't uninteresting if you do, but will be tedious in the extreme if you don't. They are also not to be read as if they had come fresh off Mount Sinai...

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon is a very good read.

[H. Ross Peron]

The Communist Manifesto twice.

[Lief 🗽]

Does the Manifesto even count as a book? It's more of a pamphlet.

I read some chapters of Capital in college, but that's about it. I also read a lot of his letters and what not for some papers I wrote. But never a full book.

[TNF]

Does the Manifesto even count as a book? It's more of a pamphlet.

I read some chapters of Capital in college, but that's about it. I also read a lot of his letters and what not for some papers I wrote. But never a full book.

It is a pamphlet. A party program, to be more precise.

[DemPGH]

Yeah, kind of required reading at some point or another, so best to be exposed to him as early as possible. Political and Philosophical Manuscripts, parts of Kapital, of course the Manifesto. Probably a few other things contained in various anthologies.

The Manifesto is kind of elementary, and reads like a rant, which shows to me rhetorical range - he could address his audience. I remember being kind of disappointed with it initially because, ha, I was expecting something almost Shakespearean, and that's not what it is. It's for ordinary folks. It's just interesting to me how right wing stuff now is kind of written or packaged the same way, especially like on Fox (although the serious analysis does not support the right wing stuff).