The accumulation of capital

Rosa Luxemburg, Routledge, 454 pages, paperback, £9.99

Writing 90 years ago, Rosa Luxemburg did not anticipate the present-day form of global capitalism. Her central thesis - that the profit system needs a non-capitalist environment to develop - has proved to be false. And capitalism has not collapsed as she expected.

Yet this book, out of print for decades, is well worth reading. Luxemburg explained why capitalism necessarily led to imperialism and war. She was also one of the first to argue that spending on armaments helps to stabilise the system.

She anticipated both the industrialisation of the Third World and the ties of financial dependency that bind independent states to the world market. And in the creation of a world working class she saw the agency of socialist liberation.

Luxemburg devoted her life to the workers' movement and this book, despite its flaws, is one of her finest works available in English.