Karl Marx
            
             The influence of Karl Marx's thought on the events transpiring
             subsequent to his writings is so immense that it perhaps towers over any
             other theorist of his time or era. Perhaps the only 19th century thinkers
             whose ideas can be said to have had a similar wide-based appeal and
             dissemination might be Sigmund Freud and Charles Darwinâ€"but although those
             great thinkers have established much in their given fields, certainly Marx
             has more deeply affected the world community and global politics on a
             massive scale. Without Marx there would not be any idea of socialism or
             communism as we know it, and the revolutions of 1848, the Russian
             revolution, the ascendancy of Mao Tse Tung in China, and the Cold War,
             might all have never occurred or have been significantly differently. Part
             of the pervasiveness of Marx's idea is that it is applicable to several
             widely different arenas of study and crosses the gaps between many of
             these disciplines. For example, Marx's idea of the dialectic, of course,
             derives from Hegelian philosophy, although Marx uses a radical materialist
             basis for his dialectic that has more philosophical resonance with
             Feuerbach. Despite being philosophical at its root, Marx's philosophy is
             eminently practical and thus it bridges the gap between speculative
             philosophy and a practical, political ethos. Indeed, Marx's ideas are a
             political platform as much as they are a given philosophy. Similarly, while
             there is a heavy political bent to all of Marx, his philosophical claims
             are predicated on an allegedly systematic analysis of history. Thus, Marx
             is also a historian, who uses all of the tools at his disposal to create a
             new means inquiring into the deeper machinations that underlie the manifold
             changes of Europe from the middle ages to the industrial era. Marx's
             history, however, is systematic and claims for itself and objectivity in
             analysis above all other historical an...