彼得·奧斯本（Peter Osborne ），倫敦密德薩斯大學（Middlesex University）的現代歐洲哲學教授，同時還是期刊《激進哲學》（Radical Philosophy）的編輯。他的著作包括《時間的政治》（The Politics of Time）、《文化理論中的哲學》（Philosophy in Cultural Theory ）和《概念藝術》（Conceptual Art）。他還是三捲本《瓦爾特·本雅明：文化理論中的批判性評估》（Walter Benjamin: Critical Evaluations in Cultural Theory）的編輯。

Intent on letting the reader experience the pleasure and intellectual stimulation in reading classic authors, the How to Read series will facilitate and enrich your understanding of texts vital to the canon. Emphasizing the Romantic heritage and modernist legacy of Karl Marx’s writings, Peter Osborne presents Marx’s thought as a developing investigation into what it means, concretely, for humans to be practical historical beings.

Drawing on passages from a wide range of Marx’s writings, and showing the links among them, Osborne refutes the myth of Marx as a reductively economistic thinker. What Marx meant by “materialism,” “communism,” and the “critique of political economy” was much richer and more original, philosophically, than is generally recognized. With the renewed globalization of capitalism since 1989, Osborne argues, Marx’s analyses of the consequences of commodification are more relevant today than ever before.

Extracts are taken from the full breadth of Marx’s writings, including Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy , the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts , and The Communist Manifesto to Capital .