He is acknowledged globally as one of the authors who has made significant contributions to the revival of Marx studies over the last decade,[1] and his research interests also include Socialist thought, the history of labour movement, and alternative socioeconomic systems.

He contributes regularly to several daily and online newspapers, including The Statesman, Corriere della Sera, il manifesto, La Razón, BirGün, and Jacobin.

[11] Musto argues that in this period Marx extended his research to new disciplines, political conflicts, theoretical issues and geographical areas, and demonstrates that he studied recent anthropological discoveries, analyzed communal forms of ownership in precapitalist societies, supported the struggle of the populist movement in Russia, and expressed critiques of colonial oppression in India, Ireland, Algeria and Egypt.

For Musto, from Marx's late unpublished, or previously neglected manuscripts and notebooks, emerge an author markedly different from the one represented by many of his contemporary critics and followers alike.

The book demonstrates the relevance of the unfinished manuscript written between 1857 and 1858 to an understanding of Capital and analyzes why the various reflections on matters that Marx did not develop elsewhere in his oeuvre are important for an overall comprehension of his thought.

The third part of this collection, dedicated to the "Dissemination and Reception of Grundrisse in the World ", reconstructs the history of all the translations and interpretations of this text and has been described as an example of "wonderful scholarly madness".

In his lengthy introduction to this book, Musto illustrates the foundations of labour movement history and presents the life of the "First International" differently from the ideological orthodoxy of Marxism-Leninism: not merely a creation of Marx but a complex organization with multiple tendencies contending for political hegemony.

It also spread awareness in their ranks that they had to achieve the goal themselves, through their own capacity for organization, rather than by delegating it to some other force; and that it was essential to overcome the capitalist mode of production and wage labour, since improvements within the existing system, though necessary to pursue, would not eliminate dependence on employers' oligarchies".

In the book's preface, Musto declares that research advances, together with the changed political conditions, suggest that the renewal in the interpretation of Marx's thought is a phenomenon destined to continue.