The 150-year anniversary of the publication of the first volume of Marx’s Capital (September 1867) is likely to provoke an outpouring of new and ingenious interpretations of what Marx was up to in Capital in general and in Volume One in particular. A first salvo in what promises to be a grand battle to redefine Marx’s legacy, both intellectual and political, comes from the pen of political scientist William Clare Roberts, who engages with Marx’s magnum opus from the standpoint of political philosophy and linguistic and literary form. The book, Marx’s Inferno: The Political Theory of Capital, is well-researched and clearly written.

The unique qualities of Roberts’s contribution derive from two innovations. First, he notices a parallel between the organization of the materials in Volume 1 of Capital and Dante’s Inferno. The descent into the living hell of the workplace and the search for redemption shapes Marx’s narrative in important ways, he suggests.

Secondly, he rejects the view that Capital should be read exclusively as an essay on political economy. He treats it instead as a tract in political philosophy. To that end, he concentrates upon the relations between Marx and the utopian socialists that preceded him. Roberts concludes that Marx went far beyond that tradition and reached back to an older tradition of republicanism as non-domination in his quest for a political alternative.