The book includes a new Afterword by Leonard Schroeter, a Seattle attorney and activist who succeeded Melvin Rader as president of the Washington chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Jerry Gill upholds this tradition in the sixth edition of this respected introductory text that addresses such fundamental concepts of philosophy as rationalism, idealism, and the social contract.

Attempts to find an underlying consistency in Marx's complex vision of history without glossing over apparent contradiciton in the writings of Marx and in those of his interpreters.