Overview: He is one of the most effective best-selling authors in the history of the world, and yet few have read his work in its entirety. His teachings have become a substitute religion, even though the author never saw himself as a founder of faith, but as a scientific analyst. "I am not a Marxist," flirted Karl Marx (1818-1883), whose work influenced the course of world history like no German since Luther. From the middle of the 20th century, about half of humanity was led by governments that invoked the German thinker.