At the beginning of the 21st century - with economic disaster, war, climate catastrophe and deep class divisions - humans face perhaps the greatest crisis in the long history of our species. The lesson of State and A Marxist Debate is that, since we created our past, we can also create a better future.
It's interesting to see the development of Marxist theory of the state step by step in this book, each author lifting new problems, attempting new solutions - a mosaic evolution of theoretical understanding. Still, it's also very orthodox Marxism, painfully so at times, and you start to see why those awful CIA "postmodernists" started to become exhausted with page upon page of Marx quotations like a scholastic's use of holy scripture.