Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/09/13/party-like-its-1848.html
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There’s a good & free audiobook version here, BTW.
IMO, it’s more suited to audio than unillustrated text; it’s an impassioned speech, not a dry textbook. The graphic novel is a nifty idea, though.
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And for those seeking a more meaty dose of illustrated marxism, I highly recommend Smith and Evans’s “Kapital for Beginners” (now in print again with a much more boring title).
Also available under the original title as a borrowable ebook:
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A portrait of the socialist as a young man.
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I was never able to past even a few pages of the Communist Manifesto and I’ve read all of Ulysses and a good part of Finnegan’s Wake. Maybe I’ll give it a go again.
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I had the same trouble getting through Atlas Shrugged and Mein Kampf. Not giving those a second try though.
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I found the Communist Manifesto easy to read, but I had just come from an attempt at reading Capital. To be honest I prefer Peter Kropotkin’s and Murray Bookchin’s views on socialism. Marx got the diagnosis right but a lot of his cures are not good, even without including the likes of Stalin, Mao, etc.
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I read most of Atlas Shrugged. It’s some of the poorest actually published prose writing I’ve ever encountered!
The Communist Manifesto, on the other hand, might deserve another go.
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Can’t wait for the animated series on Netflix - you know - for kids!
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Do you speak Catalan or Welsh?
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The manifesto becomes a lot less daunting after attempting to trudge through Das Kapital, which I’ll happily admit I’ve never finished. Marx can be helpful, but is far from essential. The continuing value (pun!) of Marx can be found mainly in the (post)situationist/post-left/ultra left communist analyses of Vanegeim, Camatte, Perlman, and the best parts of Tiqqun. The RAANistas had a good run too. I just read a translation of the latest issue of Cuadernos de Negación that was released yesterday, and while I’m all in favor of transcending past critique, it definitely left me feeling more charitable towards Marxian analysis (and even more vengeful towards Marxist interlocutors)
But when it comes to theoretical fundamentals, no one beats Emma Goldman. I don’t know how she fell out of favor as a default introductory thinker, but it was a mistake.
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