This is a collection of writings from Karl Marx (1818-1883) from the period of 1833-1834, when he had gotten married, and worked for a series of radical newspapers. The works include "Critique of Hegel's Doctrine of the State"; "On the Jewish Question"; "A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right"; "Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts (1844)," and more. The book also contains a 50-page Introduction, which places the works in their historical context.
He identifies the task of his time as "the ruthless criticism of the existing order" (pg. 207). In "On the Jewish Question," Marx (whose Jewish parents were secular and assimilated) sarcastically states, "Money is the jealous god of Israel," and "Exchange is the true god" of the Jewish people (Pg. 239). His own atheism is boldly stated: he argues that man makes religion, religion does not make man; religion is "the opium of the people" (pg. 244), and that atheism is "a negation of God, through which negation it asserts the existence of man." (Pg. 357)
He states that the right of the landowners "can be traced back to robbery." (Pg. 309) He defines communism as the positive supersession of private property as human self-estrangement, and "the complete restoration of man to himself as a social... being." (Pg. 348)
One of his most famous quotations is included, from "Concerning Feuerbach": "The philosophers have only INTERPRETED the world, in various ways; the point is to CHANGE it." (Pg. 423)
While these writings are not a particularly useful "Introduction" to Marxist thought (the The Communist Manifesto remains that), they're useful for interested students to want to follow the development of Marx's ideas over time.