A modern edition on the 150th anniversary of the Manifesto. The Communist Manifesto, drafted on the eve of the 1848 revolutions, is the most brilliant and incisive political text ever written; a work of great literary power as well as historical insight. Eric Hobsbawm, whose writing has brilliantly described the century and a half of history that has been both shaped and illuminated by the Manifesto, presents it here. As the "age of extremes" draws to an end and capitalism seems everywhere to be triumphant, as it did one hundred and fifty years ago, Eric Hobsbawm critically appraises a work which, he argues, is now more timely than ever. Hobsbawm notes the curious fact that the Manifesto remained a subterranean text for many decades and did not circulate on a mass scale, or achieve a canonical status, until comparatively recently. He argues that only the complete unfolding of capitalism on a global scale in recent times allows us to take the full measure of Marx and Engels's truly astounding mixture of passion, science and poetry.

卡爾·馬剋思，全名卡爾·海因裏希·馬剋思（德語：Karl Heinrich Marx，1818年5月5日－1883年3月14日），馬剋思主義的創始人之一，第一國際的組織者和領導者，馬剋思主義政黨的締造者，全世界無産階級和勞動人民的革命導師，無産階級的精神領袖，國際共産主義運動的開創者。

弗裏德裏希·恩格斯（Friedrich Engels，1820年11月28日－1895年8月5日），德國思想傢、哲學傢、革命傢、教育傢，軍事理論傢，全世界無産階級和勞動人民的偉大導師，馬剋思主義創始人之一。恩格斯是卡爾·馬剋思的摯友，被譽為“第二提琴手”，他為馬剋思從事學術研究提供大量經濟支持。馬剋思逝世後，將馬剋思遺留下的大量手稿、遺著整理齣版，並眾望所歸地成為國際工人運動的領袖。