The Marx-Engels Reader

The standard single-volume anthology of Marx and Engels in English, edited by the Princeton Sovietologist Robert C. Tucker and published by W. W. Norton. It prints the primary texts in near-complete form rather than in excerpt — the 1844 manuscripts, The German Ideology, The Communist Manifesto, the Critique of the Gotha Program, the key sections of Capital, and the late Engels essays — arranged so a reader can follow the development from the early philosophical writing to the mature economics. The second edition, published as The Marx-Engels Reader in 1978 and running to roughly 790 pages, is the one most courses assign.

Why it’s on the list: McCord lists it in Marxism and Collective Psychology directly after “The Communist Manifesto” and Isaiah Berlin’s “Karl Marx” — the section’s move from the short polemic and the biography to the primary corpus, so a reader arguing about Marxism is arguing with the texts rather than a summary.

Where I saw it: Brendan McCord’s Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List, in the Political Philosophy and the History of Ideas part, section Marxism and Collective Psychology — a structured curriculum shared on X on March 9, 2026 and saved to Kyle’s Apple Note “Books To Read”. The full 211-entry transcription is on The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List.

Connections

• Karl Marx — the principal author of the collected texts.
• Socialism — the tradition these documents define.
• The Opium of the Intellectuals — the critique at the head of the same section of McCord’s list.
• The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List — the curriculum this came from.