The Political Economy of Marx

Rating:
Summary: A concise intro to Marx that tackles all the deep issues
Review: I took a course from M.C.Howard five years ago at the University of Waterloo, and was pleasantly surprised to see the book appear on my reading list in a graduate Political Economy course at MIT. Not only is it a terrific guide to Marx, easy to read and follow, but having seen it years before saved me from reading a whole book on the syllabus. A must-have in the personal library of anyone interested in Political Economy.

Rating:
Summary: A concise intro to Marx that tackles all the deep issues
Review: I took a course from M.C.Howard five years ago at the University of Waterloo, and was pleasantly surprised to see the book appear on my reading list in a graduate Political Economy course at MIT. Not only is it a terrific guide to Marx, easy to read and follow, but having seen it years before saved me from reading a whole book on the syllabus. A must-have in the personal library of anyone interested in Political Economy.

Rating:
Summary: The best reader for Marxism available
Review: If your interested in Marxism, buy this book, it'll save you the trouble of wasting your money on other explications of Marx which have more to do with the author's beliefs than what Marx actually said. The authors of this book have also written a massive, two volume, scholarly book detailing how the ideas of Marxism, scholarly debate, and the implementation and creation of Marxist and neo-Marxist theory developed from the time of Marx's death to the mid eighties. So they know their stuff, and they demonstrate that continually. It seems that they reference every Marxist theorist sometime in the book, with references to well known authors like Gramsci and the more obscure modern Marxist economists as well. Be prepared to dig in on economics, to understand Marx it's unavoidable. Their style is scholarly, and it's organized like a text book. In fact it is used as a text book in some English Universities. Marx produced a huge amount of work, and it's difficult to get the big picture out of it without trying to do what's impossible--reading it all, but these guys have, and the book is a guide as well. It also includes criticism of Marx, thus presenting him as he really is, not sugarcoating him. This book is valuable to have, it can only clear away the mists, not plunge a person deeper into them.