Engels

Like Che, Engels also came from a privileged background, but rejected middle-class privilege to devote himself to the struggle for the liberation of working people, for justice and socialism. As a young man, he fought in the hills of 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. Instead of continuing his adventurous life as a full-time activist, he took on a double life in order to support his friend, Karl Marx. In the middle-class citadels of Manchester, he was known as a staid, honest and respectable businessman, but clandestinely he devoted himself to the struggle for socialism. His and Marx's ideas and his vision helped transform the 20th-century world and still resonate today. In this fascinating new biography, the icon Engels is given flesh and blood, bringing his life and times vibrantly alive.