This is an excellent biography of Engel’s and his escapades. The core of this book covers is his longtime collaboration with Marx and his own contribution to the development of Marxism.
This friendship and collaboration lasted for almost forty years. During this time, Engels provided critical financial support to Marx and his family – even after Marx’s death, as well as penning a number of newspaper articles for Marx to claim as his own and receive the financial benefit thereof!
The book covers Engel’s own contribution to Marxism. At 24 he penned “The Condition of the English Working Class” – a book which Marx praised long after. Engels was Marx’s “inside man” in the capitalist system and Marx undoubtedly relied on him for guidance on its workings for his own writings. One of Marx’s weaknesses was his inability to complete some of his researches – only the first volume of his famous “Capital” had been published by his death. It fell to Engels to assemble and edit the two posthumous volumes of “Capital”.
Engels also penned “The Dialectics of Nature” and “Origins of the Family” – the former much referred to by Lenin and Plekhanov. Engels therefore can make a full claim to being a key founder of Marxism.
