Often referred to but rarely read, The Communist Manifesto is one of the great documents of world history. Written by Marx and Engels and published in London in 1848 (in German originally), it presented a totally different view of social and political organization, as revolutionaary as Darwin's On the Origin of Species. The Manifesto's effect on world politics was incalculable, but though it might seem to have been discredited by the late 20th century,...