Introducing Marxism...

Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto is one of the world's most influential political manuscripts since it was first published in February 1848, inspiring revolutions and radically transforming the lives of millions of people worldwide - for good and bad. Introducing Marxism attempts to explain the basics of this manifesto and timeline events shaped by this ideology and subsequent rethinking of Marx's original work with Friedrich Engels.

Marxism is a hefty subject to get into and I certainly don't have that great an interest in it as I believe more in the role of the free (but regulated) markets than an automatic assumption that all workers are exploited, so the approach taken by author Rupert Woodfin and artist Oscar Zarate is an interesting one. Rather than a heavy tome that would potentially be the norm, Woodfin and Zarate have decided to break the subject down into bitesized chunks and presented it in a comic book/graphic novel format. This cannot have been an easy task but is certainly one that works really well in this case. The main concepts, as I understand them anyway, are all mentioned but the text is kept as light as possible with Zarate's artwork to illustrate concepts or to just make things a little more palatable. As this is a book on political ideology, the artwork doesn't always illustrate the points in a fundamental way as maybe the accompanying guides on Relativity or Quantum Theory for example, but it's a combination that makes this an easy read.

The book covers Marx's early work with Engels and influences by the likes of Hegel and its effect on Freud. It also covers Russia, the October Revolution and Communist Rule up to and including the fall of the Berlin Wall in the 1990's. It's a very good read, although it's clear that Woodfin doesn't believe in Marxism at all, and well presented for anyone wanting an easy introduction to a difficult subject/ideology. The book also contains a glossary of useful terms and is well-indexed, making this a handy little reference book as well.

I thoroughly enjoyed this approach and would recommend it for anyone who just wants to learn the fundamentals on this.