The Life of Karl Marx Essay -- Biography Biographies Karl Marx Essays

The Life of Karl Marx Karl Marx was the co-author of The Communist Manifesto, along with Friedrich Engels. The Communist Manifesto is a pamphlet that was written to let the public know how the working class was being treated, and to try to get rid of the class system that existed at the time. Marx believed that many of the workers throughout England were not being treated fairly and that something needed to be done about it. Marx explains, â€Å"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.† 1 He continues on to talk about how while looking at human history you ought to not just look at great individuals or great conflicts, but instead look more at social classes and the struggles in which they go through. Karl Marx led a very long and meaningful life that will always be looked at in great light. The Communist Manifesto and Karl Marx greatly impacted change of society throughout the twentieth century. 2 Karl Marx was born on May 5, 1818 in Trier, Rheinish, Prussia. Marx's father, Heinrich, was a lawyer, and his mother was Henriette Pressburg. He was second of eight children. The family was originally Jewish, which it was reported that he was not practicing Jew. Marx's father eventually changed the families religion to Protestant, so as to avoid anti-Semitism. At the age of seventeen he attended the University of Bonn, where he decided to studied law just like his father. Soon enough his father pulled him out of Bonn because of his poor grades and his injury in a duel. After paying off Marx's debts his parents then made him transfer to The University of Berlin. Here he became a little more interested in his studies and also got to know his professors a little better. One of the mos... ...s outlook, relationships both to other men and to physical nature, with which man is in perpetual physical and technological metabolism.† 8 End Notes 1) Berlin, Isaiah, Karl Marx: His life and Environment (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978). 2) Avineri, Shlomo, The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1968). 3) "Karl Marx" Education on the Internet and Teaching History Online, <http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TUmarx.htm> (12 February 2002) 4) "The Karl Marx Page" Sociology at Hewett <http://www.hewett.norfolk.sch.uk/curric/soc/MARX/Marx1.htm> (12 February 2002) 5) Blumenberg, Werner, Portrait of Marx (New York: Herder and Herder New York, 1972). 6) Avineri 7) "The Karl Marx Page" (all pictures from this website) 8) Berlin