Karl Marx

Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997) was one of the leading intellectual historians of the twentieth century and the founding president of Wolfson College, University of Oxford. His many books include The Hedgehog and the Fox, The Crooked Timber of Humanity, The Roots of Romanticism, and Against the Current (all Princeton). Henry Hardy, a Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, is one of Isaiah Berlin's literary trustees. He has edited several other volumes by Berlin, and is currently preparing Berlin's letters and remaining unpublished writings for publication.

"A model of objective clarity."--Richard Charques, Times Literary Supplement "[Berlin's] book, a perennial classic, has all the virtues of Berlin himself: charm, erudition, and (occasionally) grandiloquence."--Peter E. Gordon, New Republic "The best brief account of the life and thought of Marx."--Saturday Review "Exceptional ... [A]s a portrait of the man and the intellectual climate of the mid-nineteenth century it is, perhaps, the finest we have."--Chimen Abramsky, Jewish Chronicle "[Berlin's] accounts of Marx's theses are sometimes more effective than Marx's own words, and his descriptions of Marx as a man are remarkably vivid."--H. B. Acton, Political Studies "Berlin's attitude to his subject is exemplary, and on the whole it is the best introduction to it that we have... [The book] makes Marx intelligible, both as a person and as a thinker."--A. L. Rowse, Political Quarterly

• Editor's Preface to the Fifth Edition xi Foreword by Alan Ryan xix Preface to the Fourth Edition xxix Note to the Third Edition xxxiii Note to the First Edition xxxv 1 Introduction 1 2 Childhood and Adolescence 22 3 The Philosophy of 'The Spirit' 33 4 The Young Hegelians 57 5 Paris 76 6 Historical Materialism 112 7 1848 149 8 Exile in London: The First Phase 168 9 The International 205 10 'The Red Terror Doctor' 220 11 Last Years 248 Afterword by Terrell Carver 267 Guide to Further Reading by Terrell Carver 291 Index 297