The German Ideology: Part One

Whilst allegedly being accessible, for the common farty 18th century philosophy is very tricky. I think one the key issues with Marx is that the general meaning of words has changed a bit since his time, and thus it can make it hard to understand. So this was hard work because its unannotated and so I had to keep stopping and working out what he meant! In the end there wasn't a lot in here that I didn't already know or understand, so reading it wasn't a journey to enlightenment. But it helped me understand both Marxism and Hegelism better, and I enjoyed Marx's mockery of Stirner throughout. It is a useful reminder that in the days before memes and tweets commentators were being rude to each other. Saint Sancho indeed!

Worth reading for those with an interest in the history of philosophy (particularly German idealism and communism), and also to gain some context on some oft-quoted philosophical aphorisms, most notably the last thesis of the "theses on Feuerbach": "Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it."

Beyond that, Part 1 is interesting though generally lacking in argumentative rigour, and I found the selections from parts 2 and 3 to be too disjointed to be worth reading in their entirety.

Extremely interesting book. It contains the most basic and essential parts of Marx and Engels thoughts. Reading through this has allowed me to better understand communism and especially that of which Marx had dreamed of, not the perversion that spawned from Lenin and Stalin.

A critical analysis of German philosophical idealism and a one of the earliest accounts of materialism, revolution, and communism.