The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte — Karl Marx

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon is an essay written by Karl Marx between December 1851 and March 1852 and originally published in 1852 in Die Revolution a German monthly magazine published in New York City by Marxist Joseph Weydemeyer Later English editions such as the 1869 Hamburg edition with a preface by Marx were entitled The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte The essay serves as a major historiographic application of Marxs materialist conception of history

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon is an essay written by Karl Marx between December 1851 and March 1852 and originally published in 1852 in Die Revolution a German monthly magazine published in New York City by Marxist Joseph Weydemeyer Later English editions such as the 1869 Hamburg edition with a preface by Marx were entitled The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte The essay serves as a major historiographic application of Marx s materialist conception of history

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte is one of Karl Marx most profound and most brilliant monographs It may be considered the best work extant on the philosophy of history with an eye especially upon the history of the Movement of the Proletariat together with the bourgeois and other manifestations that accompany the same and the tactics that such conditions dictate The recent populist uprising the more recent Debs Movement the thousand and one utopian and chimerical notions that are flaring up the capitalist maneuvers the hopeless helpless grasping after straws that characterize the conduct of the bulk of the working class all of these together with the empty headed ominous figures that are springing into notoriety for a time and have their day mark the present period of the Labor Movement in the nation a critical one The best information acquirable the best mental training obtainable are requisite to steer through the existing chaos that the death tainted social system of today creates all around us To aid in this needed information and mental training this instructive work is now made accessible to English readers and is commended to the serious study of the serious The teachings contained in this work are hung on an episode in recent French history With some this fact may detract of its value A pedantic supercilious notion is extensively abroad among us that we are an Anglo Saxon nation and an equally pedantic supercilious habit causes many to look to England for inspiration as from a racial birthplace Nevertheless for weal or for woe there is no such thing extant as Anglo Saxon of all nations said to be Anglo Saxon in the United States least What we still have from England much as appearances may seem to point the other way is not of our bone and marrow so to speak but rather partakes of the nature of importations We are no more English on account of them than we are Chinese because we all drink tea Of all European nations France is the on to which we come nearest Besides its republican form of government the directness of its history the unity of its actions the sharpness that marks its internal development are all characteristics that find their parallel her best and vice versa In all essentials the study of modern French history particularly when sketched by such a master hand as Marx is the most valuable one for the acquisition of that historic social and biologic insight that our country stands particularly in need of and that will be inestimable during the approaching critical days