Reclaiming Marx's 'Capital'

Andrew Kliman, Lexington Books, paperback, 231 pages, £17.99

Harold Wilson once said that he hadn't read Marx's Capital because he couldn't get past the early chapters. He is not alone - in the academic world, 140 years after the book was first published, the conventional wisdom is that Marx's value theory is internally inconsistent.

Kliman attempts to rescue Capital from this myth, which has served to place Marx out of bounds for modern economic science and has even put off people who are interested in Marxism.

Cutting through swathes of misconception, the author writes in an accessible way especially for the non-specialist reader and keeps the maths to a minimum.

Whether he has succeeded, readers will judge for themselves. But what is not in doubt is the relevance of Capital to modern economic problems such as boom and bust, globalisation, and the environment - and indeed for anyone trying to develop an alternative to the neoliberal, free market orthodoxy.