Socialism: Utopian and Scientific of thousands of copies. Throughout the decade of the 1860s, Karl Marx, close personal friend and political associate of Friedrich Engels, dedicated himself to the study of economics, culminating in the publication of the first volume of "Das Kapital" in 1867. Marx's lengthy and ponderous volume was extremely difficult for the average to penetrate, however, leading Engels to suggest to Marx in a letter of September 16, 1868 that a short popularized version of "Das Kapital" for a working class audience was urgently needed. "If it is not written, some Moses or other will come along and do it and
Biographies of Karl Marx Biographies of Karl Marx Karl Marx (5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. Born in Trier to a middle-class family, he later studied political economy and Hegelian philosophy. For a general review of Karl Marx biographies, see the article "Karl Marx: An Overview of his Biographies" by Angelo Segrillo. Karl Marx: The Story of His Life () is a 1918 book about Karl Marx by Franz Mehring, a German historian. Considered the classical biography of Marx, the work has been translated into many languages, including Russian (1920), Danish (1922), Hungarian