In this brilliant book, “as gripping and as readable as a first-rate thriller,” Francis Wheen, author of the most successful biography of Karl Marx, tells the story of Das Kapital and Karl Marx’s twenty-year struggle to complete his unfinished masterpiece. (The Sunday Telegraph) 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. In this “exhilarating read,” 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. (The Times, London) Furthermore, Wheen argues, as long as capitalism endures, Das Kapital demands to be read and understood.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
"[An] exhilarating read, and a healthy corrective to those brought up to think of Marx's work as rigid and doctrinaire." ---The Sunday Telegraph
--This text refers to the
Audio CD
edition.
About the Author
Francis Wheen, an author and journalist, was named Columnist of the Year for his contributions to the Guardian. He is the author of several books, including How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World and a highly acclaimed biography of Karl Marx that has been translated into twenty languages. His collected journalism, Hoo-Hahs and Passing Frenzies, won the George Orwell Prize in 2003. Simon Vance, a former BBC Radio presenter and newsreader, is a full-time actor who has appeared on both stage and television. He has recorded over four hundred audiobooks and has earned over twenty Earphones Awards from AudioFile magazine, including one for his narration of Theft by Peter Carey. A twelve-time Audie finalist, Simon has won three Audie Awards, including one for Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, and the 2008 Booklist Voice of Choice Award. He has also been named an AudioFile Golden Voice as well as an AudioFile Best Voice of 2009.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
26 of 27 people found the following review helpful
By P.K. Ryan
Format:Audio CD
If you're anything like me, you have neither the time, nor the patience to delve into Karl Marx's monstrous Magnum opus of political economics, Das Kapital. Fortunately, Francis Wheen has done us a great service by giving us this fantastic "biography" of a book that changed the world. The book is superbly written, and the audio version, eloquently delivered by Simon Vance, is equally good. It is a concise work; the CD version is 3.5 hours, while the printed format is only about 144 pages. My CD version is separated into three sections. The first section details Marx's life and the circumstances that led him to write such a groundbreaking book. The second section is a succinct exposition of Das Kapital. Wheen aptly outlines and dissects the basic principles of Marx's revolutionary economic theory, objectively pointing out both Marx's errors, as well as his numerous insights, many of which have proven true. While his prophesies of the collapse of the capitalist system have obviously not come to pass, Marx offers more insight into the "nature of the beast" than anyone else before, or since.
The final section deals with the book's lasting influence and Marx's legacy. Wheen points out that in most "Marxist" countries, Marx's ideas were never thoroughly researched and interpreted, their leaders simply took their own interpretation, made it an unquestionable dogma, and that was that. Ironically, it's been in western capitalist societies where Marx, due to the freedom of scholars to study him, has been more thoroughly understood. "Marxism as practiced by Marx himself," Wheen writes, "was not so much an ideology, as a critical process, a continuous dialectical argument." More simply put, Marx was not a Marxist.
Wheen clearly has a great amount of respect for Marx. And while he is quick to point out certain lapses in logic or prognosis, he maintains that Marx was one of the most brilliant thinkers of the 19th century. In fact, he predicts that we have not seen the last of Karl Marx, and boldly suggests that in the end, he may turn out to be more relevant than most would expect. All in all, I would recommend this as a great introduction to Marx or even a refreshing new look at an old subject. 5 stars.
The final section deals with the book's lasting influence and Marx's legacy. Wheen points out that in most "Marxist" countries, Marx's ideas were never thoroughly researched and interpreted, their leaders simply took their own interpretation, made it an unquestionable dogma, and that was that. Ironically, it's been in western capitalist societies where Marx, due to the freedom of scholars to study him, has been more thoroughly understood. "Marxism as practiced by Marx himself," Wheen writes, "was not so much an ideology, as a critical process, a continuous dialectical argument." More simply put, Marx was not a Marxist.
Wheen clearly has a great amount of respect for Marx. And while he is quick to point out certain lapses in logic or prognosis, he maintains that Marx was one of the most brilliant thinkers of the 19th century. In fact, he predicts that we have not seen the last of Karl Marx, and boldly suggests that in the end, he may turn out to be more relevant than most would expect. All in all, I would recommend this as a great introduction to Marx or even a refreshing new look at an old subject. 5 stars.
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
By M. A. Krul
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
"Marx's Das Kapital" is noted Marx-sympathetic journalist Francis Wheen's contribution to Atlantic Magazine's series on book biographies. It's short, merely 120 pages of actual text, but it does the job well. Relying strongly on prominent secondary literature about Marx, such as David McLellan's excellent biography (Karl Marx, Fourth Edition: A Biography) and S.S. Prawer's equally fascinating study of Marx' use of literature and literary references (Karl Marx and World Literature (Oxford Paperbacks)), Wheen summarizes the background of Das Kapital, how it came to be, as well as its content and its reception.
Wheen is at his best in the journalistic parts, when he can give colorful and well-done descriptions of Marx's life and activities, his relation to Engels, his trials and tribulations while working on the magnum opus, and in commentary on Marx's books and style. On the other hand, his grasp of Marx's economic theories is very weak and likely to make things more confusing, especially since he misses the point and meaning of Marx's Theory of Value entirely. Also dubious is that he appends a chapter on 'afterlife' of the book, which is mostly an attempt to summarize all of the later Marxist tradition (from an anti-Leninist viewpoint) in a few pages, a task so impossible that its attempt is fruitless and uninformative.
However, Wheen is quite good at putting Das Kapital in its historical context, in emphasizing the rhetorical and literary qualities of the book and of Marx' thought in general, and the book also contains some fascinating quotes and remarks from pro-capitalist economists and businessmen who have come to see, to their own astonishment, that ol' Marx was a better analyst of the system they wish to support than anyone else. Let us hope the reader of this booklet will be inspired by this to attempt to delve into Marx & Engels' own works, which constantly show their relevance in new and unexpected ways. As Wheen demonstrates, this is precisely as Marx had intended it.
Wheen is at his best in the journalistic parts, when he can give colorful and well-done descriptions of Marx's life and activities, his relation to Engels, his trials and tribulations while working on the magnum opus, and in commentary on Marx's books and style. On the other hand, his grasp of Marx's economic theories is very weak and likely to make things more confusing, especially since he misses the point and meaning of Marx's Theory of Value entirely. Also dubious is that he appends a chapter on 'afterlife' of the book, which is mostly an attempt to summarize all of the later Marxist tradition (from an anti-Leninist viewpoint) in a few pages, a task so impossible that its attempt is fruitless and uninformative.
However, Wheen is quite good at putting Das Kapital in its historical context, in emphasizing the rhetorical and literary qualities of the book and of Marx' thought in general, and the book also contains some fascinating quotes and remarks from pro-capitalist economists and businessmen who have come to see, to their own astonishment, that ol' Marx was a better analyst of the system they wish to support than anyone else. Let us hope the reader of this booklet will be inspired by this to attempt to delve into Marx & Engels' own works, which constantly show their relevance in new and unexpected ways. As Wheen demonstrates, this is precisely as Marx had intended it.
12 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Karl Marx. For some, those two four letter words elicit hissing recoils and vicious claw swipes. Just one glimpse of the man resembling Santa Claus' evil twin can send them into a relentless conniption of fury. They may equate Marxism with communist, socialist, Leninist, anti-American claptrap. After all, weren't the Soviets America's diabolical enemy? Didn't they breed Bolsheviks in our washrooms? Inject anti-capitalist fluid into our drinking water? And didn't they derive such sinister plots from their hoary prophet of doom, Herr Marx? Surely the mighty bearded one inspired the killing fields, the Gulag death camps and the Red Square parades? So why drudge up this hateful mess?
After the Berlin Wall and the USSR collapsed, and especially after the September 11th, 2001 attacks, which put the focus on Middle East terrorism, Marx has acquired a more innocuous aura. Nothing cools old passions like new enemies. This new era has allowed Marx to crawl out from under those who have claimed him as their ideological messiah. And many have claimed him. But why did they claim him, an impoverished exiled German journalist? And were those countless communist regimes of the past two hundred years accurate reflections of Marx's ideas? Where did those ideas come from?
This small book explores the origins and fate of those ideas through Marx's maniacal magnum opus, "Das Kapital." As spiraling, towering, and dizzying, and as incomplete, as Gaudí's cathedral, this sprawling tome usually goes unread. A reputation for Tolstoyian verbosity, Proustian opacity, and Gödelian complexity preceded it into the twenty-first century. Not only that, at some 1000 pages, the book's physical presence alone would intimidate anyone but the most recklessly courageous bookworm. Nonetheless, it somehow persists. The story of how it came to be makes up this much shorter book's first two chapters. Procrastination, neglect, illness, despair, and squalor almost kept it from appearing. Decades passed between its conception and its printing. Fredrick Engels, Marx's partner and financial supporter, egged him on through a parade of excuses and diversions. Along the way snippets of Marx's economic theory, such as use-value, exchange-value, surplus-value, commodity fetishism, immiseration, and dialectic, also dot the narrative.
The reception of "Das Kapital" following its publication, outlined in chapters two and three, surprised everyone, except Engels. It didn't sell. It seemed to have fallen, a la Hume, still born from the press. Engels blamed the book's dense obscurity. The one place it did catch on, to Marx's astonishment, was in Tsarist Russia. Though Marx passed on well before the 1917 revolution there, he nonetheless praised the assassination of Tsar Alexander II by a group called "The People's Will." He also spent the rest of his days waiting for the fall of capitalism. He and Engels seemed to revel in every economic disruption. But the big blow never struck. The boom and bust cycles that Marx outlined in "Das Kapital" never destroyed capitalism from within, as he predicted it someday would and should. Of course, it still could, but to this day the system endures.
Chapter three discusses Marx's legacy. Most of all, it rescues him from some of the crimes perpetrated by "Marxist" regimes. Vladimir Lenin in particular seemed to turn the Marxian dialectic on its head by postulating an elite proletariat "intelligentsia." Marx never condoned such a thing. As the twentieth century continued, Marx was also appropriated by academic movements such as cultural studies. The book dismisses these movements apparent "Marxism" through figures such as Louis Althusser. It also criticizes this movement's displacement of economics, which lies at the heart of Marx's work, with critiques of mass culture, such as television shows and candy wrappers. Most shocking are quotes from modern economists who support some of Marx's views on capitalism. So Marx wasn't blacklisted along with all those 1930s entertainers. Marx's legacy may just be beginning, but not as a revolutionary overthrowing the capitalist machine, but as an observer of the machine's working and flaws.
A better introduction to Marx and "Das Kapital" is hard to imagine. The book reads like a roller coaster in clear accessible language. Pros as well as cons of Marxist theory, its implications, and abuses receive apt attention, and Marx's turgid masterpiece comes to life. Anyone curious about "the spectre of communism" should start with this tiny but riveting - and appropriately colored - book.
After the Berlin Wall and the USSR collapsed, and especially after the September 11th, 2001 attacks, which put the focus on Middle East terrorism, Marx has acquired a more innocuous aura. Nothing cools old passions like new enemies. This new era has allowed Marx to crawl out from under those who have claimed him as their ideological messiah. And many have claimed him. But why did they claim him, an impoverished exiled German journalist? And were those countless communist regimes of the past two hundred years accurate reflections of Marx's ideas? Where did those ideas come from?
This small book explores the origins and fate of those ideas through Marx's maniacal magnum opus, "Das Kapital." As spiraling, towering, and dizzying, and as incomplete, as Gaudí's cathedral, this sprawling tome usually goes unread. A reputation for Tolstoyian verbosity, Proustian opacity, and Gödelian complexity preceded it into the twenty-first century. Not only that, at some 1000 pages, the book's physical presence alone would intimidate anyone but the most recklessly courageous bookworm. Nonetheless, it somehow persists. The story of how it came to be makes up this much shorter book's first two chapters. Procrastination, neglect, illness, despair, and squalor almost kept it from appearing. Decades passed between its conception and its printing. Fredrick Engels, Marx's partner and financial supporter, egged him on through a parade of excuses and diversions. Along the way snippets of Marx's economic theory, such as use-value, exchange-value, surplus-value, commodity fetishism, immiseration, and dialectic, also dot the narrative.
The reception of "Das Kapital" following its publication, outlined in chapters two and three, surprised everyone, except Engels. It didn't sell. It seemed to have fallen, a la Hume, still born from the press. Engels blamed the book's dense obscurity. The one place it did catch on, to Marx's astonishment, was in Tsarist Russia. Though Marx passed on well before the 1917 revolution there, he nonetheless praised the assassination of Tsar Alexander II by a group called "The People's Will." He also spent the rest of his days waiting for the fall of capitalism. He and Engels seemed to revel in every economic disruption. But the big blow never struck. The boom and bust cycles that Marx outlined in "Das Kapital" never destroyed capitalism from within, as he predicted it someday would and should. Of course, it still could, but to this day the system endures.
Chapter three discusses Marx's legacy. Most of all, it rescues him from some of the crimes perpetrated by "Marxist" regimes. Vladimir Lenin in particular seemed to turn the Marxian dialectic on its head by postulating an elite proletariat "intelligentsia." Marx never condoned such a thing. As the twentieth century continued, Marx was also appropriated by academic movements such as cultural studies. The book dismisses these movements apparent "Marxism" through figures such as Louis Althusser. It also criticizes this movement's displacement of economics, which lies at the heart of Marx's work, with critiques of mass culture, such as television shows and candy wrappers. Most shocking are quotes from modern economists who support some of Marx's views on capitalism. So Marx wasn't blacklisted along with all those 1930s entertainers. Marx's legacy may just be beginning, but not as a revolutionary overthrowing the capitalist machine, but as an observer of the machine's working and flaws.
A better introduction to Marx and "Das Kapital" is hard to imagine. The book reads like a roller coaster in clear accessible language. Pros as well as cons of Marxist theory, its implications, and abuses receive apt attention, and Marx's turgid masterpiece comes to life. Anyone curious about "the spectre of communism" should start with this tiny but riveting - and appropriately colored - book.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
domestic chaos was typical when nobody watched TV
Then the buzzard went off.
In Latin, the name of the game is Lunovis.
Lunovis videt somnium
Se culmen rer' ess' omnium. Read more
In Latin, the name of the game is Lunovis.
Lunovis videt somnium
Se culmen rer' ess' omnium. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Bruce P. Barten
4.0 out of 5 stars
Worthwhile Reading
I won't go into great detail in analyzing the book, other reviewers here have done a sufficient job of that. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Mel
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating historical analysis of communism, Mark and Das Kapital
Francis Wheen has taken an extremely important book, and recorded the events that came from the book. Read more
Published on November 21, 2010 by Diverse
5.0 out of 5 stars
Marx's Das Kapital
Marx's `Das Kapital` is one of the most influential books of the modern era, but it is also over 1000 pages, few people have the time or patience for its peculiarities. Read more
Published on November 11, 2010 by Stephen Balbach
4.0 out of 5 stars
Mostly unread but well-Red
The state censors in Tsarist Russia were, in the short term, justified in their decision to pass Marx's greatest work, Das Kapital, for publication in 1867, reasoning that it would... Read more
Published on August 25, 2010 by MR PHILIP J SHANNON
4.0 out of 5 stars
Quick read about the man behind Das Kapital
Karl Marx spent much of his life writing Das Kapital (publishing only the first volume before his death, and never seeing any translations in English). Read more
Published on January 27, 2009 by Joe Average
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good book
A interesting read for me, as i can't get myself to stick with "The book"
Published on December 6, 2008 by Mark T. Smith
5.0 out of 5 stars
A necessary work for a library
Mr. Francis Wheen's narration of the genesis of Karl Marx's Das Kapital deserves an honored space on the library shelves of every man conversant in current affairs. Read more
Published on December 9, 2007 by John Gooch
5.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent, insightful book
When I picked up this book last week, I thought I would get some information on how 'Das Kapital' was written. In fact, I got a lot more. Read more
Published on July 30, 2006 by Sanjay Agarwal
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