(DAILY MAIL) — Two hundred years ago today, the most controversial thinker of the modern age was born in the German city of Trier.

When, on May 5, 1818, Heinrich and Henriette Marx welcomed their little boy into the world, they could never have imagined the utopian hopes and blood-soaked horrors that would become associated with his name.

Two centuries later, the very words ‘Karl Marx’ still carry an unmistakable charge. No modern intellectual, no economist or philosopher can match the combustible power of the rabbi’s grandson who fled into poverty-stricken exile in leafy North London.

This article by Dominic Sandbrook continues on the Daily Mail website, here.