Das Kapital (Capital)

English edition.

Das Kapital is "a groundbreaking work of economic analysis, but also an unfinished literary masterpiece which, with its multi-layered structure, can be read as a Gothic novel, a Victorian melodrama, a Greek tragedy or a Swiftian satire." Francis Wheen, The Guardian.

Though he died in 1883, Karl Marx''s Das Kapital, "the Bible of the working class," has been the book that most shaped twentieth-century history. His theories divided much of the world into two blocs, one embracing communism and the other fearing it, and cast a shadow into the twenty-first century.

Although Marx writes as a philosopher and economist presenting an analysis of an economic system, the book is surprisingly readable. It reads like a Gothic novel "whose heroes are enslaved and consumed by the monster they created."

Though many disagree with Marx''s conclusions, hi