The Communist Manifesto
I guess I was going to review this yesterday, since it would’ve made sense with International Labour Day, but then I… didn’t.
Anyway, this is one of those Penguin Great Ideas ones that are probably too short to count as books in their own right. The actual manifesto is only about fifty pages, and it includes a bunch of original prefaces and another mini-essay by Marx.
I already had a good idea of what was in it, but I never got around to reading it before. The first part starts off with some decent insights into contemporary (and, sadly, modern) culture, but then after that it kind of goes off the rails really quickly. It’s almost embarrassing. Still, anyone who says the seeds of Stalinism and Maoism are “obvious” in it is full of shit.
On its own, it isn’t really very interesting, but you should probably still read it for historical value. Project Gutenberg has it (and the other essay as well), and it’ll only take you half an hour or so.
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