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.

卡尔·马克思，全名卡尔·海因里希·马克思（德语：Karl Heinrich Marx，1818年5月5日－1883年3月14日），马克思主义的创始人之一，第一国际的组织者和领导者，马克思主义政党的缔造者，全世界无产阶级和劳动人民的革命导师，无产阶级的精神领袖，国际共产主义运动的开创者。

弗里德里希·恩格斯（Friedrich Engels，1820年11月28日－1895年8月5日），德国思想家、哲学家、革命家、教育家，军事理论家，全世界无产阶级和劳动人民的伟大导师，马克思主义创始人之一。恩格斯是卡尔·马克思的挚友，被誉为“第二提琴手”，他为马克思从事学术研究提供大量经济支持。马克思逝世后，将马克思遗留下的大量手稿、遗著整理出版，并众望所归地成为国际工人运动的领袖。