The archetypal political manifesto remains the ultimate poetic account of capital’s capacity both to liberate and to enslave. In the introduction to this particular edition, I tried to share with readers why and how the Manifesto changed my life and shaped the perspective through which, to this day, I understand the social world around me.

Nothing shores up the ruling class’s power more effectively than the conviction that capitalism is a natural system; that profit was always society’s motive power; that markets are inevitable; and that any difference between the price and the value of something is a figment of our imagination. Karl Polanyi’s 1944 book puts these assumptions to rest by demonstrating how relatively recent everything that capitalism makes us think is eternal is.

Probably the only readable book ever written on how the great economists think, especially on how their ideas evolved in parallel to the developing capitalism that made these ideas necessary. Robert Heilbroner’s book, I confess, inspired me to write two books whose purpose was to match his capacity to explain economic thinking simply, albeit not simplistically: 1998’s Foundations of Economics: A Beginner’s Companion, recommended to college students, and 2013’s Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: A Brief History of Capitalism, recommended to a general audience as well as college students.