A Revolutionary Life

Freidrich Engels was the Che Guevara of his day. Like Che, he came from a privileged background, but rejected middle class privilege to devote himself to the struggle for the liberation of working class people, for justice and socialism. As a young man, he fought in Southern Germany with a small band of like-minded guerrillas. After defeat, he fled Prussian persecution to settle in Britain, where he spent the rest of his life. There, he took on a double life. In the middle-class citadels of Manchester, he was known as a staid, honest and respectable businessman, but clandestinely he supported his friend Karl Marx, devoting himself to the struggle for socialism. Their ideas together shaped the 20th century and still resonate today. This new biography gives the icon Engels flesh and blood, bringing his life and times vibrantly alive.