After reading the excerpt from the Communist Manifesto, briefly explain Marx's view of
history?  What were his major points?  How did he periodize history?  Was history
linear, progressive, evolving or was it circular?  Did it repeat itself?  What forces did
Marx identify that influenced the course of history?
These are the listed questions that you should consider in preparing your essay for the
midterm exam.  The Communist Manifesto, written by Marx and Engels, is easily one of
the most important political documents of the last two centuries.  In many respects, it
connects very well with your previous studies of political documents that dealt with the
issue of political and human rights (the English Bill of Rights, the American Declaration
of Independence and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man).  Even though at
first glance, it may not appear that way, the Communist Manifesto addressed, in many 
respects, the same issues with which these earlier documents dealt.  Again you 
should also consider authorship of the document as you begin to prepare for midterm
exam.  Even though you cannot take notes into the exam, you can do most of your
preparation in outlining and developing specific arguments and points before the exam
so that when you go to the exam you will be ready to write the essay question.  You do
not have to answer the questions indicated above in the order in which I have listed
them, nor do you necessarily have to answer them all, but those questions are meant to
guide your thinking about the nature of Communist Manifesto.
Your midterm essay should probably be about two pages written.  Please remember to
use paragraphs with an introduction that clearly indicates the structure of your
argumentation and your thesis.  Finally, I would also like to mention that Marx' entire
lifetime of work established him not only as one of the leading philosophers,
economists and politicians of the nineteenth century but also as one of the first modern
historians of the Western world, in his search for scientific and analytical factors that
explained the development of human society.