Redux is a state management library for JavaScript that enables unidirectional data flow in frontend development, and it's used by various mainstream apps. The tutorial guides the reader through using Redux to manage application state and data-fetching logic in a React project, specifically with Contentful as a data source. To follow along, the reader needs intermediate knowledge of JavaScript, familiarity with Redux, Node.js version 18 or above, and a Contentful account. The tutorial covers creating a content type, fetching data from Contentful, setting up Redux, and building the application using React components.