Karl Marx And Frederick Engels : An Introduction to Their Lives and Work

This book is the result of a series of popular lectures given by David Riazanov the director of the Marx-Engels Institute in USSR. He gives not only an account of the development of the genius of Marx and Engels but also a description of the time and the social conditions under which they grew from youth through manhood to advancing age. At the time the lectures were published in book form there existed only one authoritative biography of Marx by Franz Mehring and very little had as yet been written about the life of Engels. Riazanovs book makes use of Riazanovs own research gives his vision of certain periods in the life of Marx and Engels and leads up to the time of Engels death in 1895. It is easily one of the best introductions to the lives and work of the founders of Marxism. We are reprinting it with the introduction written by Dirk Struik for the edition published by Monthly Review Press in 1973. The book has not been available in India before and it is out of print even in the USA for over two decades. We hope this volume will be useful for serious readers of Marxism as well as those who want to know about the life and work of these two great men who have changed the course of human history.