91桃色

Marx鈥檚 Inferno reconstructs the major arguments of Karl Marx鈥檚 Capital and inaugurates a completely new reading of a seminal classic. Rather than simply a critique of classical political economy, William Roberts argues that Capital was primarily a careful engagement with the motives and aims of the workers鈥� movement. Understood in this light, Capital emerges as a profound work of political theory. Placing Marx against the background of nineteenth-century socialism, Roberts shows how Capital was ingeniously modeled on Dante鈥檚 Inferno, and how Marx, playing the role of Virgil for the proletariat, introduced partisans of workers鈥� emancipation to the secret depths of the modern 鈥渟ocial Hell.鈥� In this manner, Marx revised republican ideas of freedom in response to the rise of capitalism.


Combining research on Marx鈥檚 interlocutors, textual scholarship, and forays into recent debates, Roberts traces the continuities linking Marx鈥檚 theory of capitalism to the tradition of republican political thought. He immerses the reader in socialist debates about the nature of commerce, the experience of labor, the power of bosses and managers, and the possibilities of political organization. Roberts rescues those debates from the past, and shows how they speak to ever-renewed concerns about political life in today鈥檚 world.

Awards and Recognition

• Winner of the 2017 Deutscher Memorial Prize
• Shortlisted for the 2018 C.B. Macpherson Prize, Canadian Political Science Association