Have you read Gareth Stedman Jones' introduction to the Communist Manifesto?

[Dogs On Acid]

It comes with the Penguin Classics edition. It seems to try to put you off the book and criticize it as outdated and problematic.

But that's not the worst part: the fact that it takes up 180 friggin' pages. The book is literally an introduction with the small manifesto given to you at the end...

[Brosa Luxemburg]

Yeah. I read half of it and skipped to the manifesto.

[Dogs On Acid]

Yeah. I read half of it and skipped to the manifesto.

I read the first 3 chapters and the last paragraph. Just so people have an idea:

"Tragically, it was on the basis of this slimly secured and, as it turned out, uncashable cheque, (...), that twentieth-century communism proceeded so brutally and self-righteously on it's imaginary path to the emancipation of mankind."

[ckaihatsu]

I read the first 3 chapters and the last paragraph. Just so people have an idea:

"Tragically, it was on the basis of this slimly secured and, as it turned out, uncashable cheque, (...), that twentieth-century communism proceeded so brutally and self-righteously on it's imaginary path to the emancipation of mankind."


Damn! Looks like I picked the wrong ideology...!


x D

[Os Cangaceiros]

I own that edition, and I actually think the introduction is pretty good. The bit regarding Max Stirner was particularly interesting.

[ForgedConscience]

A. J. P. Taylor's introduction is by far the worst imo. He is well known for being a Germanophobe and it is clearly written from an anti-communist point of view.


e.g.
"In his 1945 book, The Course of German History, he argued that National Socialism was the inevitable product of the entire history of the Germans going back to the days of the Germanic tribes."

[Dogs On Acid]

I own that edition, and I actually think the introduction is pretty good. The bit regarding Max Stirner was particularly interesting.

It's quite deep, but nevertheless it's hella biased.

[kuriousoranj]

A. J. P. Taylor's introduction is by far the worst imo.

I have this copy. I was quite surprised, actually, as I'd always thought AJP Taylor was probably a marxist himself.

[BE_]

No, I have not read that introduction. My first copy of The Communist Manifesto was in a compilation, so it didn't really have a proper introduction. I just got a new copy today, and it says the introduction is by Martin Puchner. I still haven't read it though.

[ForgedConscience]

I have this copy. I was quite surprised, actually, as I'd always thought AJP Taylor was probably a marxist himself.

Lol, well I was reading it at my college's library and my philosophy teacher (who is also openly socialist) asked to see who wrote the intro, then warned me that not only the historian himself but also that introduction in particular is known for being unjustifiably critical/opinionated. I read it to the end anyway and it seems he thought along similar lines to Stéphane Courtois (black book of communism author...) who equated Communism to National Socialism as deluded ideologies of oppression.

[ed miliband]

I own that edition, and I actually think the introduction is pretty good. The bit regarding Max Stirner was particularly interesting.

what does it say re: stirner?

[Ostrinski]

I never read introductions. Am I the only one?

[ed miliband]

nah i'm too impatient for that shit

[Ostrinski]

They're usually written by obscure academics that I've never heard of, never saw the point.