An introduction to the three volumes of Karl Marx's Capital

I've found David Harvey's book-length critical introductions or companions to Capital to be the most helpful of the crop I'm familiar with. Harvey, despite his shortcomings (shoddy grasp on imperialism, rambling anecdotes) is at least interested in providing an account of what Marx is saying in straightforward terms and can speak usefully both to the historical context of nineteenth century England and even at times link contemporary 'financialisation' to material in Volume II. Harvey also wrote a study of postmodernism that is in every way equal to Jameson's, and might even be said to supersede it at points, by reading the Reality Collapse Event relative to concrete economic and state activity; as a literary scholar this is important to me.

I found Althusser to be not very interested in telling me what Marx is saying. He goes in for a lot of axe-grinding for a particular, needlessly narrow interpretation of Marx; against the Hegelian, the dialectical, the historical and the moral, in favour of what he refers to as the scientific. While I understand the importance of honing in on later writings (Heinrich's comparison of Marx's writings which are most extensively discussed in the literature versus what he actually sought to publish in his lifetime is quite sobering) there's plenty of history, moral indignation and dialectics in Capital too and I don't see the sense in isolating only one dimension as more real or vital than any other.

Heinrich seems to me to be a kind of combination of the two, he too goes in for non-specific axe-grinding against un-named assailants, as well as the strawman monolith of Orthodox or 'worldview' Marxism, plays down the idea that Capital is an historical, economic or dialectical work, but there is also a fair bit of: 'this is what he is saying here' pulled off with far more economy than Harvey manages. On this basis I'd say Heinrich's companion is the best one, but also that a lot of the rhetorical flourishes and polemic disappear after page 120 of the Monthly Review edition. Volumes two and three are dealt with from this point on, over the course of just forty pages. I think this is the best move. Two and three are really gruelling works and something that just makes sense of them in the sparsest manner possible is far more sensible than advancing a new reading of mercantilism or the like.

Thereafter Heinrich attempts to formulate an authentically Marxian perspective of the state, law, imperialism and revolutionary strategy, again against non-specified 'worldview Marxists', including Lenin. Heinrich's views on these are exactly the views you'd expect a German Marxologist to have, i.e. to the right of late Kautsky.