In this brilliant book Francis Wheen the author of the most successful biography of Karl Marx tells the story of Das Kapital and Marx's twenty-year struggle to complete his unfinished masterpiece. Born in a two-room flat in London's Soho amid political squabbles and personal tragedy the first volume of Das Kapital was published in 1867 to muted praise. But after Marx's death the book went on to influence thinkers writers and revolutionaries from George Bernard Shaw to V. I. Lenin changing the direction of twentieth-century history. Wheen shows that far from being a dry economic treatise Das Kapital is like a vast Gothic novel whose heroes are enslaved by the monster they created: capitalism. Furthermore Wheen argues as long as capitalism endures Das Kapital demands to be read and understood.
