A Very Short Introduction - Marx

There are many books on Marx, but a good brief introduction to his
thought is still hard to find. Marx wrote at such enormous length, on so
many different subjects, that it is not easy to see his ideas as a whole. I
believe that there is a central idea, a vision of the world, which unifies all
of Marx’s thought and explains what would otherwise be puzzling
features of it. In this book I try to say, in terms comprehensible to those
with little or no previous knowledge of Marx’s writings, what this
central vision is. If I have succeeded, I need no further excuse for having
added yet another book to the already abundant literature on Marx and
Marxism.

Contents
Preface vii
Abbreviations ix
List of Illustrations xi
1 A Life and its Impact 1
2 The Young Hegelian 16
3 From God to Money 23
4 Enter the Proletariat 28
5 The First Marxism 32
6 Alienation as a Theory of History 39
7 The Goal of History 47
8 Economics 59
9 Communism 78
10 An Assessment 86
Note on Sources 101
Further Reading 103
Index 106