Reddit reviews Introducing Marxism: A Graphic Guide

There is a series of graphic guides to some of the political ideologies that I enjoyed. You can buy the titles as part of a broader set or individually.

Marxism - available free on Kindle. Or a bigger guide.

Capitalism - currently free on Kindle. Or a bigger guide.

Fascism - free on Kindle.

There is also a free sampler available for free on Kindle ATM.

You would definitely dig these. They might seem basic, but you'll remember it all, see how it all moves through history, and know what you want to dig into further:

Postmodernism

Critical Theory

Marxism

Philosophy in General

>http://www.amazon.com/Introducing-Marxism-Graphic-Rupert-Woodfin/dp/1848310587

This is an AMAZING book on marxism. Like none I've ever seen. Starts at ground level and will give you marx's most important ideas, along with the history of marxism, lenin, stalin, and trotsky, as well as marxism in the post-ussr world that we have today.

Also this is something you ought to read before Das kapital

http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/index.htm


here's something I posted a little while ago, too

In response to: "Relatively new to communism":
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Here's something written by Engels. Sort of a questionaire about communism:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm

For something a bit more complicated, check Engels' Synopsis of Capital: http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/1868-syn/index.htm

You're probably not going to understand Marx's Capital for a while. It's an extremely complex book, written in a way very different from the time (It models itself in a way that looks like Freud's Psychoanalysis. It talks about what things look like on the outside, and then talks about how they are on the inside, comes back up to the surface of capitalism, and talks about how the inside workings of capitalism create this outer image of capitalism)

Read the manifesto also. It's a very very basic, brief introduction to marx's thoughts. If you don't get it at first, re-read it over and over again. I guarantee you'll start to understand his language. Also read a lot of introductions to the manifesto; it's always good to have another opinion on it.

A couple wikipedia links for you:

How marx accounts for the "Human's are naturally greedy" argument. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_human_nature

The basic algorithm for how marx believed society evolved and moved along http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxist_philosophy_of_nature

(a bit more complicated) Marx's core theory of metaphysics and how society acts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_materialism

Once you think you've got the basic components of marx down, you can start on his economics.

Wage Labour and Capital. A bunch of speeches Marx gave talking about capitalism in general. these are some intermidiate concepts which are later elaborated in Capital. http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/index.htm

Marx talks about a lot of his core ideas here. http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/index.htm and here http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/preface.htm

Once you've finally decided to take on the task of slaying the dragon (reading capital), it can help to have a bunch of resources with you.

First off I would greatly recommend Mr. David Harvey http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBazR59SZXk (lecture one. The others are not hard to find at all on youtube)

Next would be this document which helps explain basic components in the first parts of capital (which is undoubtedly the most cryptic and confusing part of Capital) and the language that marx used (which a lot of people complain about as being archaic and very complex) http://www.econ.utah.edu/~ehrbar/akmc.pdf

Some reading guides for capital:

Read it multiple times after having read it the first time. you will most likely not understand it the first time, or probably misunderstand it.

Keep reading. You will, by the 3rd chapter at the latest, be 100% disheartened from reading it, believing it to be too complex for you. Just keep reading.

Make an engagement to the book. as if you are married to it.

Realize that this all seems overly complex, but at the end of it, you will have an all new, more rich perception of the political and economic world around you, and will see things in ways that most people don't see them. The simple knowledge of key Marxist economic vocabulary often brings the respect of your peers (if you're into that).

While you're at it, this is always a good read:

Marx's writings about the american civil war http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1861/us-civil-war/index.htm

Letters written about the US, including a letter written to abraham lincoln himself (replied to by the Ambassador to Great Britain). http://marxists.org/archive/marx/letters/subject/america.htm http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/iwma/documents/1864/lincoln-letter.htm Always interesting to see how world politics affects your own country's history (if you ARE american that is)

But anyways, stick with it. Marxism will be a journey that will take you a long time, and will probably never finish; constantly in a state of learning. Just know that studying Marx and Communism will never do you wrong.

"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it." ~Karl Marx

Introducing Marxism: A Graphic Guide is a handy little book that covers the growth of Marxism from early socialism up through the modern day, explaining the key points of both the history and the theory. I think it's less than 100 pages but packs a lot of great information in there. It certainly helped me grasp some stuff early on when I was still trying to figure the basics out.

Here's the Amazon listing for it