Reading 6 - Marx for Beginners

The Marx For Beginners reader was quite a bit more complicated than Freud. Understandably so, however, when one considers the depth and breadth of Marx’s philosophies. The author’s preface was surprisingly heedful because even he admits he still has more to understand. There were hundreds of terms to breakdown and the author struggled to reduce the number of them without reducing the definitions of the ideas. For me some of the most interesting material was the number of pages devoted to the history of philosophy. While the illustrations were less complex than in Freud, the book gave a very good summary of the entire history of the evolution of religion, philosophy, metaphysics, mechanics, etc leading up to Marx’s time and contemporary schools of thought. I was surprised to learn that Marx had such a huge breadth of work. And I think it’s interesting when considering his theories, to consider his personal life and the hardships that he faced due to lifelong poverty.