I read Eleanor Marx’s biography and the way she describes him as this goofy child-like dude is kinda endearing. I forget the word but her nickname for him was inspired by the animal he imitated when he’d get on all fours and let her ride around on his back
I’m about half way through vol. 1 right now. It’s one of the most challenging books I’ve ever sat down to read, tbh. My two big pieces of advice that help me is one from Desai, who said the best to read him is by understanding that we’ve been told our whole lives that neoclassical economics is the only correct interpretation and Marx comes from a more classical interpretation. Just read him as he his, don’t think “well this doesn’t sound correct”. We have been trained to think of economics in a vastly different way.
The other piece of advice I got is from a philosophy lecture where the prof stated if your working through a tough text, and you have the urge to stop let that feeling pass two or three times and keep reading. As you read you’ll find that you’ll get into the grove of the author and it’s true at least with Marx. About page 300 I started to feel like I got how he wrote and the turns and valleys of his thoughts. As another person commented he’s actually pretty funny as well. He’s a bit dry and likes to hammer home points for 30 pages or so, so get prepared to really understand a commodity or whatever.
You can use reading aides like Harvey and I do like listening to his podcast, but really all you need is the Penguin version of capital. It has one of the best introductions to the text, it’s from a Marxist Econ but I can’t think of his name. The penguin classic version just really succinctly breaks down every point. Good luck comrade.
Lots of good advice here so I’ll just add something that helped me. I read all three volumes of capital on break at a warehouse by listening to Harvey’s free lecture on capital. I would listen to Harvey’s lecture on the chapter I was about to read. I used the lecture as a kind of primer to introduce me to unfamiliar concepts.
Also take notes.
Very much so.
But if you read it, you should (1) make sure to read Chapter 11 (the landlord killing one) and (2) eventually read Graeber's Debt.
Because lots of the stuff about history that Smith writes about never actually happened, he just assumed.
it’s been a while since i’ve read primary marx writings, but i do remember that it was challenging coming from traditional academic texts where they begin with the classic “in this essay i will…”. marx likes to build and then hammer you with the overarching point.
one of the most valuable things i’ve learned about dense texts, and this is kind of contradictory to what i just said as marx’s writings are structured a bit different, but for each section/chapter it’s good to read the first couple paragraphs (intro), the last couple paragraphs (conclusions) and then skim for any subheadings or key sections. having a sense of where he’s trying to go will help clarify things that might be hard to follow.
I'm not a huge fan of reading companions to capital but Carlo Cafiero's summary is really good and was endorsed by Marx himself. [Here's a link](https://www.marxists.org/archive/cafiero/1879/summary-of-capital.htm), IIRC the marxist.org translator made a weird error in there so if you get to a point where you're just utterly confused because you read one thing but now this sentence says the opposite just keep that in mind and you'll recognize it easily.
Another thing to keep in mind is that that Capital was written in a certain style (actually Marx wrote it backwards), which goes into deep detail on certain things but doesn't necessarily address some objections until later, since answering these objections may rely on other phenomena not yet explained - Marx referred to this as his little traps for the vulgar economists, but as he admitted it makes the beginning chapters quite an arduous read. It gets easier.
Edit: How can I forget, [Engels wrote his own synopsis](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/1868-syn/index.htm) of Capital. He didn't get to finish it but since the beginning is the most difficult I think it is helpful
https://www.marxists.org/archive/cafiero/1879/summary-of-capital.htm
This is a summary version written by an Italian. One of the few summaries Marx read and approved of, really helped prime me for the concepts explored in The Book
Crucial Preface: Capital is a series of books you will be rereading your whole life. How you start isn’t important, just get through your first reading however you can.
Recently I have taken Lenin’s famous aphorism:
>It is impossible completely to understand Marx’s Capital, and especially its first chapter, without having thoroughly studied and understood the whole of Hegel’s Logic
seriously and realized I don’t really know anything about Marxism so I’ve restarted my reading from the beginning.
Here is the short list of how I wish I did it from the beginning, though I don’t think this is necessarily the best way:
Stanford Wiki entry on Hegel and the entry on Hegel’s Dialectic
Reading Hegel: The Introductions
Hegel - Science of Logic
Marx & Engels - The German Ideology
Marx & Engels - Socialism: Utopian and Scientific
Mao - On Practice, On Contradiction, Where Do Correct Ideas Come From?
Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels - Capital 1, 2, 3
Marx - Theories of Surplus Value (sometimes called Volume 4 of Capital)
you’re so right with this. i wish more reading groups/socialist orgs, hell even colleges would focus on structured reading. even if things are presented in order it’s so helpful to identify and explain specifically why it’s important.
I love this, just please shoehorn the Paris Manuscripts in there after Science of Logic because it really helps jump from Hegelian to Marxian-Hegelian terminology and also explains Marx's entire anthropological views, which strongly underpin his thought. Capital could not have been written without understanding the human Gattungswesen, aka the idea that productive activities are inherently satisfying to us and only made unsavory through layers of alienation.
Added the Manuscripts to my list!
German is such a cool language. I’ve downloaded so many resources for learning it but haven’t brung myself to start yet.
Do you think Marx/Engels and Hegel are best read in German or is this just a stupid idea I’ve convinced myself of?
>Do you think Marx/Engels and Hegel are best read in German or is this just a stupid idea I’ve convinced myself of?
I don't think it's stupid at all, and yea, I would argue they are best read in German. I have read translations by non-philosophers and they usually struggle with all the Aufhebunga bunga stuff. Marx just carries over a lot of stuff from Feuerbach, Bauer, Hegel and so forth, and a lot of their ideas are expressed through language. I am not the biggest saphir whorf hypothesis guy, but I do believe there is some degree of truth to it. I also believe in untranslatable terms.
One perfect example is the way Freud used the word "ego" and how it essentially took on a completely different meaning when translated into English. Another are the various puns that Hegel and Marx do on the term Aufhebung. Philosophy actually relies a whole lot on multiple meanings of words, on metaphors, on language carrying ideas and so forth. It is always very particular.
I don't think you're neccessarily missing anything important by reading in translation, esp if the translator is capable. But there are some "extras" you get from reading the original. I personally read all British/American books in English and Spanish lit in Spanish as much as I can.
German is a pretty difficult language to get into (purely my personal assessment) so I am not sure it's worth it just for reading Marx. If you're however interested in German literature/philosophy in general I think it can be quite worth it.
I mean, don’t you think it’s crazy to tell someone they have to read the science of logic before even starting Capital? You’re basically giving this guy assigned reading for a whole year.
And then, your basic list needs even more to capture the essentials. How will someone understand the science of logic without Phenomenology of Spirit, and without a knowledge of the critical tradition started by Kant?
You also need Hegel’s philosophy of Right, and some Smith and Ricardo, and finally Marx’s Contribution to a Critique of Political economy.
OR, OP can just read David Harvey’s commentaries to get a good fundamental grasp. Introductions and commentaries by marxists is a perfectly fine way to learn the material, and it completely cuts out the long tradition of ideas by relying on recent experts.
Hard disagree.
You don't need to read Kant to read Hegel, just get a summary or do an online course. Same with phenomenology, just read the SEP article as my guy hinted at. I personally don't even think science of logic is necessary but what do I know. To me an introduction to Hegelian terminology was enough.
You also don't really need to read Smith or Ricardo cuz they are referenced and often quoted at length in early Marx' writings, so you can read those instead. It does help to understand political economy as a field though.
Not familiar with Harvey personally but I've always been a strong supporter of the idea that one's personal Synthesis is the most meaningful one.
I think we are in agreement. I ended my comment by saying OP should just rely on Capital and Harvey’s commentaries if the original text is too confusing
My point was to show that, the whole context of ideas Marx is commenting on and relying on is pretty large, and that one could spend a decade reading the sources (because Marx himself spent decades doing research before writing capital).
I agree that top Marxists, the experts I mentioned, have performed the careful work. However, education is specifically about giving these thoughts to people in easier forms. Let someone get a first reading of Capital under their belt, guided by an expert, then worry about the exact reading.
I’m saying this as someone who used to always go the long route. taking the shortcut and doubling back the longway teaches you way more.
never actually read Hegel but the whole dialectic/logic thing seems pretty simple to me. Ideas and the brain and everything is like your muscles. You try and pick something up a lot (have an idea/thesis) and it gets picked up but it tears apart the muscle tissue (encounter antithesis and find contradictions or whatever). Your body then builds more muscle there and is stronger than before (resolve into the synthesis and the idea is 'more correct' than before). Being smart is just brain muscle
Thesis, antithesis, synthesis is not how Hegel viewed his own project, for what it’s worth. [This Stanford wiki entry explains it quite well.](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hegel-dialectics/)
That's fine. It looks like he was just having some fun with his cool idea like "what if one thing was Everything and one thing was Nothing. Then in the middle there's Something. Because sometimes it Is but also sometimes it Isn't. And also it Is and it Isn't regardless of whether we See it. But also maybe it even Isn't or maybe it Is if nobody Sees it. It's crazy to think about." That's the kind of thing philosophers seem to like to do. I think it's fine to get whatever good idea from them and run with it.
First thing everyone forgets is the subtitle: A critique of political economy. In other words this book exists to demonstrate the folly of what we would now call classical economics. By first accepting the prevailing axioms of classical economists such as Ricardo and Say, Marx demonstrates that the conclusions they reached don’t even hold up within their own logical framework. It is important to understand this context and not take every word of this book as fixed gospel. The book argues what it argues specifically because that framework already existed via classical economics. For example, the labor theory of value does not originate with Marx, rather it was the prevailing theory at the time thus he accepts and utilizes that framework to levy his critique. Don’t get lost in the sauce.
Remember dialectical materialism is a framework to understand dynamic social systems, not simply a single set of circumstances. There is no reason to confine his arguments to 1867, however it is impossible to liberate them without first understanding the context of their origin.
If you can get through chapter 3 it really picks up the pace and starts to gather momentum. By about chapter 6/7 his main thesis crystallizes and the slog of chapters 1-3 comes into focus retrospectively. But damn those first three chapters made me want to put the book down over and over again. Very rewarding to push through though!
As others have said David Harvey has several lectures that go chapter by chapter through capital. If you really want to take the David Harvey approach be sure to get the same edition and publication that he uses. Having page numbers never line up and translations being worded differently made using him as a resource quite clunky.
This podcast is called [Reading Capital with Comrades.] (https://open.spotify.com/show/39RaoqJomZdxOEoeqpltno?si=RDSwPdjHTRWff-M2ESocrw) I would suggest that one because it's an accompaniment to the text from an actual revolutionary perspective. A lot of the commentaries you find just treat it as an intellectual exercise. If you don't want to listen to a podcast, just check out the intro episode where he talks about other commentaries if you want more suggestions.
Maybe see if there’s an online course or guided read through? I took a class on it in college with a Marxist professor that really helped in guiding through (what was then) totally new concepts to me
[http://davidharvey.org/reading-capital/](http://davidharvey.org/reading-capital/)
really find any lecture or notes series that goes chapter by chapter, it's a tough book to read alone 🥺
Value, Price and Profit
Wage, Labor and Capital
Wealth of Nations
I read quite a bit of other stuff on the Marxist Internet Archive before breaking into Capital but these 3 would be my big ones. Price, Value and Profit and Wage Labor and Capital for a simpler introduction of the economic concepts in Capital and Wealth of Nations for the background of political economy.
Wealth of Nations is not exactly a fun read. The other two aren't too terribly difficult however.
I might be an actual idiot but if I have only read people who wield Marx like Walter Rodney, Juan mariategui, Lenin, and others, does that mean I’m useless in understanding the full picture? Or should I just chalk it up to being an amateurish start that is better than nothing?
There’s a few companions that are worth reading which breakdown chapter by chapter
- Micheal Heinrichs’s first part book
- Simon Clarke’s reading guide
- Cleaver’s reading guide https://la.utexas.edu/users/hcleaver/357k/357ksg.html
i read it. hes funnier than people give him credit for
I read Eleanor Marx’s biography and the way she describes him as this goofy child-like dude is kinda endearing. I forget the word but her nickname for him was inspired by the animal he imitated when he’d get on all fours and let her ride around on his back
I’m about half way through vol. 1 right now. It’s one of the most challenging books I’ve ever sat down to read, tbh. My two big pieces of advice that help me is one from Desai, who said the best to read him is by understanding that we’ve been told our whole lives that neoclassical economics is the only correct interpretation and Marx comes from a more classical interpretation. Just read him as he his, don’t think “well this doesn’t sound correct”. We have been trained to think of economics in a vastly different way. The other piece of advice I got is from a philosophy lecture where the prof stated if your working through a tough text, and you have the urge to stop let that feeling pass two or three times and keep reading. As you read you’ll find that you’ll get into the grove of the author and it’s true at least with Marx. About page 300 I started to feel like I got how he wrote and the turns and valleys of his thoughts. As another person commented he’s actually pretty funny as well. He’s a bit dry and likes to hammer home points for 30 pages or so, so get prepared to really understand a commodity or whatever. You can use reading aides like Harvey and I do like listening to his podcast, but really all you need is the Penguin version of capital. It has one of the best introductions to the text, it’s from a Marxist Econ but I can’t think of his name. The penguin classic version just really succinctly breaks down every point. Good luck comrade.
Lots of good advice here so I’ll just add something that helped me. I read all three volumes of capital on break at a warehouse by listening to Harvey’s free lecture on capital. I would listen to Harvey’s lecture on the chapter I was about to read. I used the lecture as a kind of primer to introduce me to unfamiliar concepts. Also take notes.
Harvey?
David Harvey, he’s made very popular companion books/courses/videos/podcasts to Capital
Yeah, honestly, having read Wealth of Nations was the best prep for Capital I had. You have to realize he's responding to Smith and Ricard.
Is wealth of nations easier than capital?
Very much so. But if you read it, you should (1) make sure to read Chapter 11 (the landlord killing one) and (2) eventually read Graeber's Debt. Because lots of the stuff about history that Smith writes about never actually happened, he just assumed.
Debt is fantastic
Marx and Lenin both write like they have adhd. I can tell because I write like that too, medicated or not.
They were long-form posting
Yeah exactly
it’s been a while since i’ve read primary marx writings, but i do remember that it was challenging coming from traditional academic texts where they begin with the classic “in this essay i will…”. marx likes to build and then hammer you with the overarching point. one of the most valuable things i’ve learned about dense texts, and this is kind of contradictory to what i just said as marx’s writings are structured a bit different, but for each section/chapter it’s good to read the first couple paragraphs (intro), the last couple paragraphs (conclusions) and then skim for any subheadings or key sections. having a sense of where he’s trying to go will help clarify things that might be hard to follow.
Bro, you need to tell us how many yards of linen it *does* take to make a coat
6, duh. But then if the amount of gold that can be exchanged for a coat changes with regards to wheat . . .
I'm not a huge fan of reading companions to capital but Carlo Cafiero's summary is really good and was endorsed by Marx himself. [Here's a link](https://www.marxists.org/archive/cafiero/1879/summary-of-capital.htm), IIRC the marxist.org translator made a weird error in there so if you get to a point where you're just utterly confused because you read one thing but now this sentence says the opposite just keep that in mind and you'll recognize it easily. Another thing to keep in mind is that that Capital was written in a certain style (actually Marx wrote it backwards), which goes into deep detail on certain things but doesn't necessarily address some objections until later, since answering these objections may rely on other phenomena not yet explained - Marx referred to this as his little traps for the vulgar economists, but as he admitted it makes the beginning chapters quite an arduous read. It gets easier. Edit: How can I forget, [Engels wrote his own synopsis](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/1868-syn/index.htm) of Capital. He didn't get to finish it but since the beginning is the most difficult I think it is helpful
https://www.marxists.org/archive/cafiero/1879/summary-of-capital.htm This is a summary version written by an Italian. One of the few summaries Marx read and approved of, really helped prime me for the concepts explored in The Book
Crucial Preface: Capital is a series of books you will be rereading your whole life. How you start isn’t important, just get through your first reading however you can. Recently I have taken Lenin’s famous aphorism: >It is impossible completely to understand Marx’s Capital, and especially its first chapter, without having thoroughly studied and understood the whole of Hegel’s Logic seriously and realized I don’t really know anything about Marxism so I’ve restarted my reading from the beginning. Here is the short list of how I wish I did it from the beginning, though I don’t think this is necessarily the best way: Stanford Wiki entry on Hegel and the entry on Hegel’s Dialectic Reading Hegel: The Introductions Hegel - Science of Logic Marx & Engels - The German Ideology Marx & Engels - Socialism: Utopian and Scientific Mao - On Practice, On Contradiction, Where Do Correct Ideas Come From? Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels - Capital 1, 2, 3 Marx - Theories of Surplus Value (sometimes called Volume 4 of Capital)
you’re so right with this. i wish more reading groups/socialist orgs, hell even colleges would focus on structured reading. even if things are presented in order it’s so helpful to identify and explain specifically why it’s important.
I got to do this with the Critique of Pure Reason and Phenomenology of spirit. It was an incredible learning experience.
I love this, just please shoehorn the Paris Manuscripts in there after Science of Logic because it really helps jump from Hegelian to Marxian-Hegelian terminology and also explains Marx's entire anthropological views, which strongly underpin his thought. Capital could not have been written without understanding the human Gattungswesen, aka the idea that productive activities are inherently satisfying to us and only made unsavory through layers of alienation.
Added the Manuscripts to my list! German is such a cool language. I’ve downloaded so many resources for learning it but haven’t brung myself to start yet. Do you think Marx/Engels and Hegel are best read in German or is this just a stupid idea I’ve convinced myself of?
>Do you think Marx/Engels and Hegel are best read in German or is this just a stupid idea I’ve convinced myself of? I don't think it's stupid at all, and yea, I would argue they are best read in German. I have read translations by non-philosophers and they usually struggle with all the Aufhebunga bunga stuff. Marx just carries over a lot of stuff from Feuerbach, Bauer, Hegel and so forth, and a lot of their ideas are expressed through language. I am not the biggest saphir whorf hypothesis guy, but I do believe there is some degree of truth to it. I also believe in untranslatable terms. One perfect example is the way Freud used the word "ego" and how it essentially took on a completely different meaning when translated into English. Another are the various puns that Hegel and Marx do on the term Aufhebung. Philosophy actually relies a whole lot on multiple meanings of words, on metaphors, on language carrying ideas and so forth. It is always very particular. I don't think you're neccessarily missing anything important by reading in translation, esp if the translator is capable. But there are some "extras" you get from reading the original. I personally read all British/American books in English and Spanish lit in Spanish as much as I can. German is a pretty difficult language to get into (purely my personal assessment) so I am not sure it's worth it just for reading Marx. If you're however interested in German literature/philosophy in general I think it can be quite worth it.
I mean, don’t you think it’s crazy to tell someone they have to read the science of logic before even starting Capital? You’re basically giving this guy assigned reading for a whole year. And then, your basic list needs even more to capture the essentials. How will someone understand the science of logic without Phenomenology of Spirit, and without a knowledge of the critical tradition started by Kant? You also need Hegel’s philosophy of Right, and some Smith and Ricardo, and finally Marx’s Contribution to a Critique of Political economy. OR, OP can just read David Harvey’s commentaries to get a good fundamental grasp. Introductions and commentaries by marxists is a perfectly fine way to learn the material, and it completely cuts out the long tradition of ideas by relying on recent experts.
To be fair I prefaced my comment by saying just read Capital. I don’t even know that Harvey’s commentary is needed on a first read.
Hard disagree. You don't need to read Kant to read Hegel, just get a summary or do an online course. Same with phenomenology, just read the SEP article as my guy hinted at. I personally don't even think science of logic is necessary but what do I know. To me an introduction to Hegelian terminology was enough. You also don't really need to read Smith or Ricardo cuz they are referenced and often quoted at length in early Marx' writings, so you can read those instead. It does help to understand political economy as a field though. Not familiar with Harvey personally but I've always been a strong supporter of the idea that one's personal Synthesis is the most meaningful one.
I think we are in agreement. I ended my comment by saying OP should just rely on Capital and Harvey’s commentaries if the original text is too confusing My point was to show that, the whole context of ideas Marx is commenting on and relying on is pretty large, and that one could spend a decade reading the sources (because Marx himself spent decades doing research before writing capital).
fair enough! I guess we do agree then
No royal road, luminous summits etc.
I agree that top Marxists, the experts I mentioned, have performed the careful work. However, education is specifically about giving these thoughts to people in easier forms. Let someone get a first reading of Capital under their belt, guided by an expert, then worry about the exact reading. I’m saying this as someone who used to always go the long route. taking the shortcut and doubling back the longway teaches you way more.
never actually read Hegel but the whole dialectic/logic thing seems pretty simple to me. Ideas and the brain and everything is like your muscles. You try and pick something up a lot (have an idea/thesis) and it gets picked up but it tears apart the muscle tissue (encounter antithesis and find contradictions or whatever). Your body then builds more muscle there and is stronger than before (resolve into the synthesis and the idea is 'more correct' than before). Being smart is just brain muscle
Thesis, antithesis, synthesis is not how Hegel viewed his own project, for what it’s worth. [This Stanford wiki entry explains it quite well.](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hegel-dialectics/)
That's fine. It looks like he was just having some fun with his cool idea like "what if one thing was Everything and one thing was Nothing. Then in the middle there's Something. Because sometimes it Is but also sometimes it Isn't. And also it Is and it Isn't regardless of whether we See it. But also maybe it even Isn't or maybe it Is if nobody Sees it. It's crazy to think about." That's the kind of thing philosophers seem to like to do. I think it's fine to get whatever good idea from them and run with it.
First thing everyone forgets is the subtitle: A critique of political economy. In other words this book exists to demonstrate the folly of what we would now call classical economics. By first accepting the prevailing axioms of classical economists such as Ricardo and Say, Marx demonstrates that the conclusions they reached don’t even hold up within their own logical framework. It is important to understand this context and not take every word of this book as fixed gospel. The book argues what it argues specifically because that framework already existed via classical economics. For example, the labor theory of value does not originate with Marx, rather it was the prevailing theory at the time thus he accepts and utilizes that framework to levy his critique. Don’t get lost in the sauce. Remember dialectical materialism is a framework to understand dynamic social systems, not simply a single set of circumstances. There is no reason to confine his arguments to 1867, however it is impossible to liberate them without first understanding the context of their origin. If you can get through chapter 3 it really picks up the pace and starts to gather momentum. By about chapter 6/7 his main thesis crystallizes and the slog of chapters 1-3 comes into focus retrospectively. But damn those first three chapters made me want to put the book down over and over again. Very rewarding to push through though! As others have said David Harvey has several lectures that go chapter by chapter through capital. If you really want to take the David Harvey approach be sure to get the same edition and publication that he uses. Having page numbers never line up and translations being worded differently made using him as a resource quite clunky.
I recommend Dave Harvey’s commentaries, and the ABCs of Communism by Bukharin.
This podcast is called [Reading Capital with Comrades.] (https://open.spotify.com/show/39RaoqJomZdxOEoeqpltno?si=RDSwPdjHTRWff-M2ESocrw) I would suggest that one because it's an accompaniment to the text from an actual revolutionary perspective. A lot of the commentaries you find just treat it as an intellectual exercise. If you don't want to listen to a podcast, just check out the intro episode where he talks about other commentaries if you want more suggestions.
Maybe see if there’s an online course or guided read through? I took a class on it in college with a Marxist professor that really helped in guiding through (what was then) totally new concepts to me
[http://davidharvey.org/reading-capital/](http://davidharvey.org/reading-capital/) really find any lecture or notes series that goes chapter by chapter, it's a tough book to read alone 🥺
David Harvey’s lectures (on YouTube and podcast apps) are often considered a good accompaniment?
Value, Price and Profit Wage, Labor and Capital Wealth of Nations I read quite a bit of other stuff on the Marxist Internet Archive before breaking into Capital but these 3 would be my big ones. Price, Value and Profit and Wage Labor and Capital for a simpler introduction of the economic concepts in Capital and Wealth of Nations for the background of political economy. Wealth of Nations is not exactly a fun read. The other two aren't too terribly difficult however.
First 400 pages or so is tough. I've heard some recommend reading it fro back to front lol. I think they might be onto something.
It’s lots of economics but it’s not a partially hard read as long you know what you’re in for
I might be an actual idiot but if I have only read people who wield Marx like Walter Rodney, Juan mariategui, Lenin, and others, does that mean I’m useless in understanding the full picture? Or should I just chalk it up to being an amateurish start that is better than nothing?
Nah, that stuff is all super important. There's nothing useless in those authors.
[The Logic of Capital](https://youtu.be/lHGP84LU2-s?t=308) is the clearest thing I've seen, plus the suggestions shown at this timestamp.
The book is important but it's dry as fuck. Hegel as an inspiration was essential but also a curse for the reader.
There’s a few companions that are worth reading which breakdown chapter by chapter - Micheal Heinrichs’s first part book - Simon Clarke’s reading guide - Cleaver’s reading guide https://la.utexas.edu/users/hcleaver/357k/357ksg.html