El capital

Karl Marx (1818–1883) was born in Trier in western Germany, studied law and philosophy and became a radical journalist. Expelled from Germany, France and Belgium for his writings, he settled in London in 1849, where he lived in poverty with his family, supported by his friend and collaborator Friedrich Engels.

With Engels he wrote The Communist Manifesto in 1848; in the reading room of the British Museum he spent years on Capital, his analysis of how capitalism works. Whatever one thinks of the movements made in his name, few thinkers have had as great an influence on politics, history and economics.