Capital
Volume 1
1867 · 1152 pages
Workers create more value than their wages return, Marx argues, and that gap is profit. No economic book has reshaped politics more, and the chapter on the working day still burns.
★ 7.5
The Books canon
Sourced and shelved.
Every book chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
Browse all 1,178 books or filter by subject, era, place, and author.
Browse all 1,178 books or filter by subject, era, place, and author.
The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists
1914 · 624 pages
The philanthropists of the title are house painters who give their labor away and defend the system that ruins them. Owen, the socialist, cuts up bread to demonstrate the money trick.
★ 5.7
Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung
The Little Red Book
1964 · 146 pages
Printed by the billion and waved by Red Guards, Mao's pocket handbook compresses his politics into 427 quotations on struggle, self-criticism, and war. During the Cultural Revolution, not carrying one was dangerous.
★ 4.2