Who was Karl Marx really - the man with the bushy beard and lion's mane? The seducer of the working masses, whose dream led to a communist dictatorship? Or the founder of the modern world, whose unleashed economic system shapes our lives today? The real Marx was not a role model or a figure for monuments; he was rather small, constantly ill, and extremely opinionated. He failed miserably during the 1848 revolution. However, his theories have shaped German history and politics - and they continue to live on. What he has to say to us today, after his 200th birthday, about freedom, morality, religion, and society, is revealed in this biography.