Beer is best remembered as an early writer on the topic of imperialism and for a series of books, published in translation in several countries, which examined the nature of class struggle throughout human history.

Moses Beer, known to all by the nickname "Max," was born 10 August 1864 in the small town of Tarnobrzeg, Galicia, which was then part of the Austrian Empire.

[2] This political activity put him at odds with the conservative government of the country and after eight months in the editorial chair Beer was arrested under charges of having incited class struggle and insulted the German authorities.

He left school to resume his journalistic career, covering the controversial French treason case against Alfred Dreyfus for the press.

[1] Beer covered the Spanish–American War and emerging American imperial policy in former Spanish possessions as a correspondent for the Berlin socialist newspaper Vorwärts (Forward) and the theoretical monthly of the Social-Democratic Party of Germany, Die Neue Zeit (The New Time), among others.

[3] During the next several years, Beer would author a biography of Karl Marx and a series of works of history which examined the changing forms of class struggle through the centuries.

Written in German, these works would be published in translation into English and other languages, gaining Beer an international reputation as a Marxist historian.