Capital

This edition presents Karl Marx's Capital, Volume 1 in a new abridged translation by Paul Reitter, edited by Paul North and William Clare Roberts, with an introduction by Wendy Brown. First published in 1867, Capital is Marx's central work of political economy: an analysis of the commodity form, the theory of value, the extraction of surplus labor, and the internal dynamics that drive capitalist economies toward crisis and concentration.

The abridgment retains Marx's core theoretical architecture — the famous opening chapters on commodities and value, the account of the working day, and the analysis of accumulation — while trimming the historical digressions and appendices that make the unabridged original a significant undertaking. The new translation aims for greater clarity than the standard 20th-century English versions without softening Marx's argument.

Wendy Brown's introduction and the editors' apparatus place the text in its historical and intellectual context, making the case for reading Marx directly rather than through secondary summary. The edition is aimed at students and general readers encountering Capital for the first time, as well as returning readers looking for a leaner path through the argument.