Althusser covers a wide range of topics in this work, from repressive and ideological state apparatuses (the best of the essays), to historical materialism, to Stalinism. His Marxist perspective is situated unmistakably within the structuralism of the 1960s, although his arguments about ideology and its relationship to power still hold up well today. Despite its commitment to total history, this is really helpful for understanding later work on both Marxism and the sociology of knowledge. Althusser’s work is among the best with regards to the relationship between capitalism and the State.