Both Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx were German-born anti-capitalists active in London's expatriate radical community. In 1848, they wrote and published The Communist Manifesto as part of a communist organization, originally in German. Their critique of capitalism from a Hegelian viewpoint crystallized reaction to capitalism, and launched the most influential political movement of the twentieth century.

The Brothers Karamazov took Fyodor Dostoevsky over two years to write, and he intended the massive work as the first in a series, but he died four months after its publication. The novel concerns the Karamazov family, led by patriarch Fyodor Karamazov and his three sons of young adult age, the hotheaded Dmitri, the rational Ivan, and the faithful Alexei. Philosophical and emotional conflicts drive the plot and themes of the lengthy novel.

All Quiet on the Western Front, written by the German writer Erich Maria Remarque, shares many similarities with some of Ernest Hemingway's novels, as it is set during World War I and based on the author's experiences. However, Hemingway's distinctive style, modernist narrative structure, terse language, and glorification of machismo are almost polar opposites to Remarque's style.

All Quiet on the Western Front, written by the German writer Erich Maria Remarque, shares many similarities with some of Ernest Hemingway's novels, as it is set during World War I and based on the author's experiences. However, Hemingway's distinctive style, modernist narrative structure, terse language, and glorification of machismo are almost polar opposites to Remarque's style.

Bernard Malamud's 1952novel The Natural appears on its surface to be a straightforward novel about a talented baseball player who attempts a comeback after he was shot on the verge of his major league breakthrough at the age of nineteen. The novel, though, deals with themes of morality, mythology, and celebrity. The novel is one of the author's most famous, and was made into a successful film.

A Streetcar Named Desire won the 1948 Pulitzer Prize in Drama for its playwright, Tennessee Williams. Largely considered one of the premier dramas of the twentieth century, the play's depiction of mental health problems, sexual desire, and violence was considered groundbreaking in its own time. The play would be made into an award-winning movie in 1951 and firmly established Tennessee Williams as one of the largest figures of the theater world.

Arthur Miller won the Pulitzer Prize in Drama in 1949, David Mamet won the Pulitzer Prize in Drama in 1984, Eugene O'Neil won the Pulitzer Prize in Drama in 1922, 1928, and 1957, and Sarah Ruhl won the Pulitzer Prize in Drama in 2010.

In the Bible, the books of Exodus through Deuteronomy tell of the departure of the Hebrew people from Egypt. The classic moment in this sojourn is their time at Mount Sinai. This is where the so-called Ten Commandments were said to be presented by God to Moses. Whatever might be the historical accuracy of this overall tale, this is an important fact to know, as the experience of the Hebrew people in the desert was pivotal for their self-identity. This would remain a continuing motif throughout their scriptures as well as in the Christian scriptures as well, which would present Jesus as a kind of second Moses.

H.P. Lovecraft was a writer who toiled away in his own life in relative obscurity, writing horror and science fiction pieces for small magazines. After his death in 1937, however, Lovecraft's stories, which featured otherworldly scenarios, horrible creatures, and threats to humanity, gained a larger popularity. In modern times, Lovecraft is seen as one of the foremost science fiction and horror authors.

Immanuel Kant was the inheritor of the great pedagogical program of German scholasticism, drawing on a number of thinkers such as Wilhelm Gottfried Leibniz (especially through the works of Christian Wolff) and many, many others. At a certain point in his career, however, Kant came to the conviction that the excesses of these so-called "rationalistic" philosophers could not provide an adequate grounding for the sciences and for the moral life.

Therefore, Kant undertook a change of perspective that led to the publication of his three best known works: The Critique of Pure Reason, The Critique of Practical Reason, and The Critique of Judgment. These three texts sought to explain just what could be known within the bounds of finite human reason—thus providing a critical perspective regarding what he took to be the excesses and emptiness of the philosophy that he had taught for many years.

In a way, all of these thinkers were influential, though in different ways. Francisco de Vitoria was a teacher in Spain whose work on natural rights is part of a broader discussion that would eventually filter through many Catholic and Protestant thinkers. These thinkers would become sources for the pivotally important Thomas Hobbes, whose best known political work is the _Leviathan—_a brutal but fully developed treatise on a quite domineering notion of the nation state. Likewise, Baron de Montesquieu was quite influential on many political thinkers during this period, as was Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

The most important thinker concerning the Declaration of Independence is John Locke. It is from Locke's thought that Thomas Jefferson derived his remarks regarding the rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." In Locke's political philosophy, he actually presents life, liberty, and property as the three fundamental rights of human persons. Locke's position was a kind of softening of the much harsher position of Hobbes, who stated that when we are not in society, we only have one fundamental right—self defense! Note, of course, that Jefferson changed "property" to "pursuit of happiness." This followed the recommendations of his fellow drafters, who hoped thereby to avoid issues that could have arisen because of a very problematic form of property in the colonies—slaves.