The Communist Manifesto. ( A modern edition on the 150th anniversary. With an introduction of Eric Hobsbawm

The Communist Manifesto, drafted on the eve of the 1848 revolutions, is the most brilliant and incisive political text ever written; a work of great literarv power as well as historical insight. It is presented here by Eric Hobsbawm, whose writing has brilliantly described the century and a half of history which has been both shaped and illuminated by the Manifesto.

As the "age of extremes" draws to an end and capitalism seems everywhere to be triumphant, as it did one hundred and fifty years ago, Eric Hobsbawm critically appraises a work which, he argues, is now more timely than ever. Hobsbawm notes the curious fact that the Manifesto remained a subterranean text for many decades and did not circulate on a mass scale, or achieve a canonical status, until comparatively recently. He argues that only the complete unfolding of capitalism on a global scale in recent times allows us to take the full measure of Marx and Engels's truly astounding mixture of passion, science and poetry.

"Every paragraph breaks over us like a wave that leaves us shaking from the impact and wet with thought. This prose evokes breathless momentum, plunging ahead without guides or maps, breaking all boundaries, precarious piling and layering of things, ideas and experiences." - Marshall Berman, The Nation

"Its message is a timeless one that bears repeating every century or so: The meek shall triumph and the mighty shall fall; the hundry and exhausted will get restless and someday-someday!-rise up against their oppressors." -Barbara Ehrenreich, Salon
Read an excerpt from Eric Hobsbawm's introduction...

Eric Hobsbawm is Emeritus Professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is the author of The Age of Revolution, The Age of Capital, The Age of Empire and The Age of Extremes.