Norman Geras is a well-known writer on Marxist theory with a reputation for careful textual analysis and cogent advocacy. His books, The Legacy of Rosa Luxemburg and Marx and Human Nature, made an important contribution to the understanding of their subjects, dispelling certain common myths about them.

This collection of essays, written over a decade and a half, displays the same clarity of exposition and force of argument in the discussion of pivotal texts and topics in the Marxist tradition. The essays range over questions of social theory, political theory, moral philosophy and literary criticism; over the thought of Marx and Trotsky, Luxemburg, Lenin and Althusser. They include Geras's influential and widely-cited treatment of fetishism in Capital, his comprehensive review of recent debates on Marxism and justice, discussions on political organisation, revolutionary mass action and party pluralism, and a novel analysis of the literary power of Trotsky's writing.

In close dialogue with common themes and arguments in the literature of revolutionary Marxism, Geras brings some of his persistent preoccupations to the fore; with the normative foundations and some of the epistemological assumptions of this tradition, with issues of socialist democracy, working class self-education and emancipation.