The thought of Karl Marx : an introduction

THERE are several books designed to serve as introductions to Marx's thought. Books of selections cannot fulfil this function by themselves as selections need to be placed within a context and cannot be read continuously with much profit. Most commentaries, on the other hand, quote too little from Marx's writings and treat his ideas as a static system with little reference to any change or development in his ideas. When some of Marx's works are cited, the reader who has not much previous knowledge of Marx does not know what sort of a work is being quoted from, nor the circumstances under which it was written. It is therefore the aim of this book to provide the elementary groundwork essential for an understanding of Marx's thought by giving, in the first half, a straight descriptive account of Marx's writings in chronological order with a small amount of biographical detail; in the second half, a synoptic approach is adopted with an exposition of certain themes central to Marx's thought and relevant selections from his writings attached to each chapter. In reproducing these selections I have corrected existing translations where necessary and made my own where none existed previously. I have tried to include passages from some of the lesser known and untranslated writings of Marx -for example Front Matter....Pages i-xi Front Matter....Pages 1-1 Chapter One....Pages 3-16 Chapter Two....Pages 17-30 Chapter Three....Pages 31-42 Chapter Four....Pages 43-53 Chapter Five....Pages 54-67 Chapter Six....Pages 68-85 Chapter Seven....Pages 86-100 Chapter Eight....Pages 101-113 Front Matter....Pages 115-115 Alienation....Pages 117-133 Historical Materialism....Pages 134-150 Dialectic....Pages 151-163 Labour....Pages 164-176 Class....Pages 177-192 The Party....Pages 193-205 The State....Pages 206-222 Revolution....Pages 223-239 Future Communist Society....Pages 240-252 Back Matter....Pages 254-268 David Mclellan. Includes Index. Bibliography: P. [257]-264.