Books by Karl Marx
Karl Marx was a 19th-century German philosopher who had a huge impact on world history with his formulation of communism as a way of combating the horrors of the capitalism that had resulted from the Industrial Revolution. Our interview about Marx and Marxism is with political theorist Terrell Carver of the University of Bristol. The best place to start with Marx is by reading The Communist Manifesto. Written with his friend, Friedrich Engels, it is short and clear (in contrast to his later work, Capital). If you’re new to Marx, there’s also a nice comic book, Introducing Marx: A Graphic Guide, by the Mexican cartoonist and intellectual, Rius, which puts him in context. Our most recommended biography of Karl Marx is Karl Marx: A Nineteenth-Century Life (2013) by Jonathan Sperber. For a biography that’s more focused on his philosophy, there’s also Karl Marx: His Life and Thought (1973) by David McLellan.
“What Marx does really effectively is to emphasise that our understanding of the world is shaped largely by our material conditions. There’s this belief—which has become increasingly popular, certainly in my lifetime—that we’ve got unconstrained agency, and our ability to pursue forms of life independent of material conditions is limitless. What Marx makes perfectly clear is that if we want to transform society, we need to transform the material conditions under which people live.” Read more...
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Matthew Johnson, Political Scientist
“I chose The Communist Manifesto, rather than, say, Capital because it shows in a much easier-to-read, shorter work something that is central to Marx’s vision. ..The Communist Manifesto is an early work, published in February 1848, the year of revolutions in Europe, when Marx was not quite 30. The Manifesto shows Marx still thinking within the framework of Hegel’s ideas about contradiction but transforming them from something that’s happening in our consciousness to something that’s happening in the material world.” Read more...
The Best Nineteenth-Century Philosophy Books
Peter Singer, Philosopher
“They were written by Marx for himself, never intended for publication — or certainly not in this form. I think some of them are really first drafts with Marx writing in a high state of excitement…Marx was one of the most intelligent people who ever lived, with the most penetrating mind, and a philosophical training. In the 1844 Manuscripts he is exploring the classic works in economics and writing notes as a student as well as copying extracts. Some parts are copied, some parts are paraphrased. And there is also Marx’s own commentary. You see him taking Adam Smith’s writings — and the mythology is that Smith is one of the great defenders of capitalism — and Marx finds, in the Wealth of Nations, a whole range of criticisms of capitalism that sound just like Marx.” Read more...
The best books on Political Philosophy
Jonathan Wolff, Philosopher
Interviews where books by Karl Marx were recommended
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