The Communist Manifesto: A Graphic Novel

Marx and Engels meet Martin Rowson. What's not to like?

Good quality this makes a perfect present for my friend.

Great book, amazing artwork. I enjoyed reading the book and will definitely be revisiting the illustrations.

Great fm way to revisit this

Readers of the world unite.

This is an illustrated edition of the Communist Manifesto, a short work of some 30 pages in the original edition (and written in German, so it was probably even shorter in other languages), knocked out over a boozy weekend break with Engels in Brussels in 1848.Despite that, it does have the best analysis of “All History Hitherto” that I have read in so few pages. Some of Marx’s extrapolations from it may appear a bit dated now, there having been a bit more history since, but he is surprisingly prescient compared to many more recent writers, particularly those of science fiction.The illustrator of this volume notes the presence of several philosophical paradoxes, and Marx’s views on the role of women could do with a bit more clarity, though his views on child factory labour – “Abolition [thereof] in its present form” has been taken up with enthusiasm by clothing and sportswear manufacturers the world over.The illustrations are very Marxist in their depiction of the downtrodden classes and support the text in a suitably ideological way.If you haven’t read the Communist Manifesto before, this is as good a way as any to do so, regardless of your political persuasions: like Darwin’s theory of natural selection, Marx’s interpretation of history actually stands outside of political/scientific/religious theories and beliefs, and identifies, what can best be described as ‘natural’ processes. I was quite surprised when I read it, and I am not now, nor have I ever been, a Marxist.

Brilliant!!!

Wonderful read and visually does what it ought, informs, explains, entertains and enhances the understanding of the original, whilst updating it, at the end, to present day too. The Review in Publisher's Weekly sums up my thoughts, so shall place here:Rowson (The Wasteland), a political cartoonist whose scabrous style can be traced right back to Ralph Steadman, has produced a funny and nightmarishly dark graphic adaptation of communism’s foundational document. Rowson reimagines the book as a kind of lecture, with the bearded authors—Marx with a cigar in his hand and a cynical smirk on his face, Engels holding a great red flag yet to be unfurled—strolling through a hellish landscape in which demonic steampunk machines grind up hapless proletarians into grist for the capitalist mill. At one point, Marx lectures in a “Kapitalist Komedy Club” open-mic night. Though the backdrops, with their Pink Floyd’s The Wall aesthetic, can distract, this adaptation admirably boils down Marx’s history lessons and luridly illustrates the warning that the bourgeoisie class produces “its own grave-diggers.” While the book takes Marx’s assumptions about the inevitability of a vast proletarian uprising at face value, it also includes a wry coda on the aftermath of Marx-inspired revolutions. The result is a jauntily irreverent but fundamentally serious take on a vastly influential political work.