It goes without saying that much ink has already been spilled on Karl Marx’s famously unfinished magnum opus known as Capital. In spite of its incompleteness, however, many cite Marx’s critique of political economy as one of the most influential books in world history.

The notion of “alienation” has a strange history, oscillating between periods of undeniable eminence and apparent obscurity. The three books included in this review essay—Karl Marx’s Writings on Alienation, edited and introduced by Marcello Musto; Alienation and Nature in Environmental Philosophy, by Simon Hailwood; and Alienation, by Rahel Jaeggi—exemplify some of the most creative and exacting accounts of alienation that outline the frontiers of scholarship on the topic.