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The Communist Manifesto

The Communist Manifesto

Summary

'The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains.'

Marx and Engels's revolutionary summons to the working classes - one of the most important and influential political theories ever formulated.

Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions.

Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895). Marx's works available in Penguin Classics are Capital, Dispatches for the New York Tribune, Early Writings, Grundrisse, The Portable Karl Marx and Revolution and War.

About the authors

Karl Marx

KARL MARX was a German philosopher, political economist, historian, political theorist, sociologist, communist, and revolutionary, whose ideas played a significant role in the development of modern communism. Born in Trier, Germany, Marx Studied law and philosophy at University. Due to his political writings, he was forced to live in exile in London, where he continued to develop his thought in collaboration with German thinker Friedrich Engels and publish his writings. His best-known titles are the 1848?pamphlet?The Communist Manifesto?and the three-volume?Das Kapital?(1867-1883). Marx's political and philosophical thought had enormous influence on subsequent intellectual, economic and political history
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Friedrich Engels

Friedrich Engels (1820-95) was the son of a Manchester factory owner. He wrote several groundbreaking essays on contemporary social and political conditions in Britain, including The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845), in which he criticised the working conditions and treatment of the urban poor. After Karl Marx' death, Engels completed and published the last two volumes of Das Kapital (1884, 1894) from his friend's surviving papers.
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