The Communist Manifesto

Written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels for a small group of German workers in London and published in February 1848, the Manifesto opens with 'A spectre is haunting Europe' and closes with 'Workers of all countries, unite!' In between it tells history as a series of class struggles and describes, with surprising admiration, how the bourgeoisie had transformed the world.

It is short enough to read in an afternoon, and whatever one thinks of the movements and states that later claimed it, few pamphlets have had such influence. Its pages on globalisation and constant economic change can sound remarkably current; read it beside John Stuart Mill's Principles of Political Economy for the other side of the debate.

Karl Marx (1818–1883) was born in Trier in western Germany, studied law and philosophy and became a radical journalist. Expelled from Germany, France and Belgium for his writings, he settled in London in 1849, where he lived in poverty with his family, supported by his friend and collaborator Friedrich Engels.

With Engels he wrote The Communist Manifesto in 1848; in the reading room of the British Museum he spent years on Capital, his analysis of how capitalism works. Whatever one thinks of the movements made in his name, few thinkers have had as great an influence on politics, history and economics.