Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist,
critic of political economy, and
socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 pamphlet ''
The Communist Manifesto'' and the four-volume (1867–1883). Marx's political and philosophical thought had enormous influence on subsequent intellectual, economic, and political history. His name has been used as an adjective, a noun, and a school of social theory.
Born in
Trier,
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...
, Marx studied law and philosophy at the universities of
Bonn
The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ru ...
and
Berlin
Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...
. He married German theatre critic and political activist
Jenny von Westphalen in 1843. Due to his political publications, Marx became
stateless and lived in exile with his wife and children in London for decades, where he continued to develop his thought in collaboration with German philosopher
Friedrich Engels and publish his writings, researching in the
British Museum Reading Room.
Marx's
critical theories
A critical theory is any approach to social philosophy that focuses on society and culture to reveal, critique and challenge power structures. With roots in sociology and literary criticism, it argues that social problems stem more from socia ...
about society, economics, and politics, collectively understood as
Marxism, hold that human societies develop through
class conflict
Class conflict, also referred to as class struggle and class warfare,