Karl Marx circles us, and we him. This reflects the power of his legacy, but it also indicates the nature of the intellectual process. We move around objects of interest and insight, working by successive approximations. Peter Beilharz has been circling Marx for forty years. This volume of essays expands the metaphor by working through three circles in the history of Marxism. The first works with Marx; the second with the classical legacy, through to Bolshevism and western marxism ; the third steps closer to the present , in thinkers such as Bauman , Heller and Castoriadis. Read together, these essays represent a lifetime’s engagement with Marx and his intellectual consequences.