For a thinker whose revolutionary ideas have had such a decisive impact on the world, it is ironic that Marx’s own political writings remain so neglected. His political writings are often seen as texts written instrumentally to earn money, which he often desperately needed, or they are seen as beautiful texts with little connection to his economic studies and writings. But in fact, Marx’s political texts are themselves extraordinary displays of analysis of the class struggle and the mediations needed to understand these struggles.

Aijaz Ahmad (1941–2022) guided generations of Marxists around the world in their struggle to understand the world and to change the world. In these conversations with Vijay Prashad, himself a leading Marxist thinker, Aijaz Ahmad examines texts such as The German Ideology, The Communist Manifesto, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, and The Civil War in France, placing them in context, drawing out their interconnections, and shining his bright analytical torch on aspects that make these texts come alive for us today.

This book is a little gem, a veritable course on how to read Karl Marx.

Aijaz Ahmad was one of India's best-known Marxist scholars. His best-known books include In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures (1992), Lineages of the Present: Ideological and Political Genealogies of Contemporary South Asia (1996), and, from LeftWord Books, Nothing Human is Alien to Me: Aijaz Ahmad in conversation with Vijay Prashad (2020), Iraq, Afghanistan and the Imperialism of Our Time (2004).