The recent resurgence of interest in the West in Karl Marx's thought has centered largely on his early writings, particularly the Economic-Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 (published for the first time in 1932 in the original German), and on the role which the theme of alienation played in Marx's thought. Much of the literature stimulated by this renewed study of Marx has been concerned with the extent of continuity (or discontinuity) between the early and later views of Marx and the relevance of his concept of alienation to modern industrial societies. The fact that the young Marx's writings have provided intellectual support for various “revisionist” groups yearning for a “humanistic socialism” in European Communist countries has also undoubtedly focused attention on these works in the West.