In this book Robert Fine reviews three great studies of modern political life: Hegel's "Elements of the Philosophy of Right", Marx's Capital" and Hannah Arendt's "Origins of Totalitarianism." The book not only offers a reinterpretation of these individual texts, but shows what is revealed when these texts are freed from their intellectual isolation and read together as a living unity. In Fine's account all three emerge as "critical texts" which contrast the great promise of modern politics - freedom, equality, solidarity - with the grubbier reality of domination and violence. They are all revealed as "empirical" works which analyze the actual forms of political modernity; as "scientific" works which are not content merely with describing external appearances; as "dynamic" works concerned with the movement and trajectory of modern politics; and finally as "unmasking texts" which not only address the illusions of modern politics but also the illusion of unmasking itself.