Karl Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist, whose influence was felt throughout Europe. The Marx He Knew by John Spargo is an exceptional summary of the life, work and family of Karl Marx. The life of Marx is told through the eyes of a dear friend and contributor to the workers movement, Hans Fritzsche. Karl was born into a wealthy middle-class family in Tier in the Prussian Rhineland and studied at the University of Bonn and Berlin where he became interested in philosophical ideas of the Young Hegelians. He wrote for Rheinische Zeitung, a radical newspaper in Cologne, and began to work out the theory of the materialist conception of history. It is through his work he realizes the deep poverty of the people and his desire to change their stations in life by forming unions. In 1849 he was exiled and moved to London together with his wife and children, where he continued writing and formulating his theories about social and economic activity. He was not only exiled but he suffered from great poverty. This would not be known to fellow collaborators because Karl was so free and self-less with possessions. Karl Marx is presented in a more personal, almost familial, appreciation of his desire to resolve the conflicts between the ownership class that controls production and a dispossessed under class of laborers.