Capital: Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1

by Karl Marx, Paul North (Editor), Wendy Brown (Foreword by), William Clare Roberts (Afterword)

Overview

Marx for the twenty—first century
The first new English translation in fifty years—and the only one based on the last German edition revised by Marx himself
Featuring extensive original commentary, including a foreword by acclaimed political theorist Wendy Brown
“An astounding achievement.”—China Miéville, author of October: The Story of the Russian Revolution

Karl Marx (1818–1883) was living in exile in England when he embarked on an ambitious, multivolume critique of the capitalist system of production. Though only the first volume saw publication in Marx’s lifetime, it would become one of the most consequential books in history. This magnificent new edition of Capital is a translation of Marx for the twenty—first century. It is the first translation into English to be based on the last German edition revised by Marx himself, the only version that can be called authoritative, and it features extensive commentary and annotations by Paul North and Paul Reitter that draw on the latest scholarship and provide invaluable perspective on the book and its complicated legacy. At once precise and boldly readable, this translation captures the momentous scale and sweep of Marx’s thought while recovering the elegance and humor of the original source.

For Marx, our global economic system is relentlessly driven by “value”—to produce it, capture it, trade it, and, most of all, to increase it. Lifespans are shortened under the demand for ever—greater value. Days are lengthened, work is intensified, and the division of labor deepens until it leaves two classes, owners and workers, in constant struggle for life and livelihood. In Capital, Marx reveals how value came to tyrannize our world, and how the history of capital is a chronicle of bloodshed, colonization, and enslavement.

With a foreword by Wendy Brown and an afterword by William Clare Roberts, this is a critical edition of Capital for our time, one that faithfully preserves the vitality and directness of Marx’s German prose and renders his ideas newly relevant to modern readers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691190075
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	09/17/2024
Pages:	944
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 9.40(h) x 2.00(d)

About the Author

Karl Marx (1818–1883) was a German philosopher, historian, and political economist whose critique of capitalism is considered one of the most influential developments in modern thought. Paul Reitter is the Ohio Eminent Scholar of German and Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures at Ohio State University. His translations include The Autobiography of Solomon Maimon (Princeton). Paul North is the Maurice Natanson Professor of German at Yale University. His books include The Yield: Kafka’s Atheological Reformation. Wendy Brown is the UPS Foundation Chair in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. William Clare Roberts is Associate Professor of Political Science at McGill University.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Paul Reitter’s intrepid new translation makes it possible to think about Capital anew and as a new kind of book.”—Edwin Frank, author of Stranger than Fiction

“Paul Reitter and Paul North’s new English edition of Volume I of Marx’s Capital deserves the highest compliment that someone like me can give it—namely, someone who reads Marx in English translation and therefore relies entirely on the skill and craft of translators and editors, who in this case were thankfully and miraculously undaunted by such a gargantuan project. The highest compliment is this: Reitter and North have given us an accessible Capital—clear and coherent, timelessly up—to—date, and current without being fashionable. This translation communicates as plainly and forcefully as such a complex and intricate analysis allows. Huzzah! This is the version I will be reading with students going forward.”—Beverley Best, author of The Automatic Fetish: The Law of Value in Marx’s “Capital”

“An astounding achievement.”—China Miéville, author of October: The Story of the Russian Revolution

“We thought all had been said about Marx’s Capital, a book on which entire libraries already exist. It was a misjudgment. Superbly translated by Paul Reitter and carefully edited by Reitter and Paul North, Capital reveals many arcane meanings. We enjoy the pleasure of a new reading and penetrate the secrets of its incredibly complex conceptual structure by exploring the huge web of its sources and references. Above all, as Wendy Brown suggests in her foreword, we abandon the prejudice of reducing Capital to a nineteenth—century masterpiece. This powerful book offers multiple keys to a critical understanding of our Anthropocene age of neoliberal capitalism, the destruction of nature, the explosion of economic and social inequalities that disfigure humanity, and the submission of the entire earth to the rule of universal commodity reification. An irreplaceable book for both interpreting and changing the world.”—Enzo Traverso, author of Revolution: An Intellectual History

“Marx’s Capital is surely among the most difficult of texts a translator can face. With deftness and aplomb, Paul Reitter has risen to the challenge to produce a translation that will surely become a standard for new readers and a beacon for scholars seeking new insights into one of the few masterworks that can legitimately claim to have changed the course of history.”—Arthur Goldhammer, translator of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty—First Century

“This translation is a revelation precisely because it catches the rhetorical subtlety and sinuous rhythms of Marx’s prose. The text takes Marx’s neologisms into English to get his ontological weirdness exactly right, and to puzzle readers today in exactly the way that he wanted.”—Terrell Carver, University of Bristol

“By bringing out the sharpest edges of Marx’s concepts in the course of their development, Paul North and Paul Reitter make his style visible in unprecedented ways. This refreshingly faithful, judiciously annotated translation is destined to become the center of an exciting new revival of Marx’s thought for everyone.”—Sianne Ngai, author of Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

“In this new edition of Volume I of Capital, Paul Reitter and Paul North offer a new occasion and a new and ample set of reasons to deepen our study of Marx’s invaluable critique of value. The generous severity of what he gives and what they regift provides for our sustenance and renewal with an analytic force that only love and fury can inspire, showing us what we can create and what we must destroy.”—Fred Moten, author of In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition

“A momentous achievement. With clear, direct prose that captures the artistry, wit, and philosophical complexity of the original text, and helpful editorial notes that provide crucial background for both novice and seasoned readers, Reitter and North have produced an edition of Capital that will put Marx’s unrivaled critique of capitalism in its rightful place as essential reading for anyone aiming to understand and transform our historical present.”—Karen Ng, author of Hegel’s Concept of Life: Self—Consciousness, Freedom, Logic

“Capital is the work of Marx that truly deserves to be read. It elucidates the magical power of the ‘fetish,’ which developed out of commodity exchange and came to dominate the whole world. This new translation will make this magical power more widely understood.”—Kōjin Karatani, author of Marx: Towards the Centre of Possibility

“Marx was an incredibly subtle writer, constantly playing in his texts with allusions to classical novels and dramas, popular sayings, and historical narratives. In his theoretical masterpiece, the first volume of Capital, he brought this art to perfection. Paul Reitter has managed, with a rare combination of accuracy and imagination, to do justice to all the artistry of Marx’s text. This new translation will, I think, sooner or later replace all the older editions.”—Axel Honneth, author of The Poverty of Our Freedom

“A translation for our times. Based on the last German edition that Marx himself revised and approved for publication, this new reading successfully captures his theoretical understanding, vigorous humor, and righteous anger. The resulting text is keenly attuned to the literary and logical structure of Capital, conveying both the complex rhythms of Marx’s language and the continuing relevance of his reasoning.”—David Leopold, author of The Young Karl Marx: German Philosophy, Modern Politics, and Human Flourishing

Editorial Reviews

"In a world that burns more quickly by the day—after centuries of industrial rapacity, and with ever—increasing flares of fascism—a new English translation of Marx, and the first to be based on his final revision of this foundational critique of capitalism, is just what the people ordered."

The Millions

"An outstanding translation of one of the most important and influential books of the last 150+ years. The quality of editing, the copious explication, and the stellar supporting documents result in a translation that will be definitive for decades."

Library Journal

"Winner of the Helen & Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize, Goethe Institute"

"Winner of the Lois Roth Award for a Translation of a Literary Work, Modern Language Association"

"No previous English version of ‘Capital’ has featured such an erudite critical apparatus or such an exacting translation. It’s a remarkable achievement that forces readers to attend to the philosophical subtleties of Marx’s argument."——James Miller, New York Times Book Review

"A new landmark translation"——Jacob Berger, Wall Street Journal

"Truly excellent—it made me read it again, cover to cover, with the old Moore—Aveling and Fowkes translations also open on the desk, for fun."——Brad DeLong

"Reitter’s meticulous care with Marx’s terminology, however, doesn’t inhibit his efforts to render other language in the book more colloquial. . . . The resulting text is remarkably crisp and contemporary, laden with contractions and slang, at times even bordering on the conversational. . . . [This] translation will richly reward those well versed in Marx in addition to those approaching Capital for the first time."——Alyssa Battistoni, The Nation

"Here in the third decade of the twenty—first century, Princeton University Press presents Capital as the story not of inevitable proletarian triumph but of 'value' and how the law of value 'came to tyrannize our world' . . . . [Reitter and North's Capital] represent . . . this original document, [and] make for a new and somewhat undiscovered book, even to Marxist adepts. . . . Reitter’s literalism restores a proper . . . honesty to a text whose nature is to reveal itself only fitfully, and never once and for all."——Benjamin Kunkel, Harper's

"Paul Reitter, a professor of Germanic languages and literatures at Ohio State University, has produced a new translation of the first volume of Capital that restores to the book a freshness it had lost in the half—century since Ben Fowkes’s 1976 translation. . . . Paul North, a professor of German at Yale, has co—edited this new translation with Reitter. They have furnished it with a fine set of endnotes, which help to elucidate the book’s often complex terminology."——Peter E. Gordon, London Review of Books

"The new translation is in a different league: Paul Reitter and Paul North go back to Marx’s text of 1872, taking account of reams of recent scholarship as well as commenting knowledgeably on problems of translation and coming up with some neat solutions . . . They bring out the audacity of Marx’s prose."——Jonathan Rée, Times Literary Supplement

From the Publisher

"An outstanding translation of one of the most important and influential books of the last 150+ years. The quality of editing, the copious explication, and the stellar supporting documents result in a translation that will be definitive for decades."

Library Journal (Starred review)