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The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

Karl Marx · 1852

Marx's 1852 essay analysing Louis Napoleon's coup of 1851 through class struggle, opening with his famous remark that men make history but not as they please.

Marx wrote this essay analysing the coup that brought Louis Napoleon to power.

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Title page of 'Die Revolution, Eine Zeitschrift in zwanglosen Heften', edited by J. Weydemeyer, First Issue. Title: 'Der 18te Brumaire des Louis Napoleon', by Karl Marx. Printed in New-York, 1852, Deutsche Vereins-Buchhandlung von Schmidt und Helmich, Nassau Street No. 191.
Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, first published in Die Revolution, New York, 1852.

About this source

What it is

This essay was written by Karl Marx between December 1851 and March 1852. It was first published in 1852 in Die Revolution, a German-language magazine in New York edited by Joseph Weydemeyer, and later revised by Marx for an 1869 edition.

Why it matters

The essay explains how class conflict in France allowed Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte to seize power and become emperor, despite the earlier revolution. It is one of Marx's most famous applications of his theory of history to current events, and contains his often-quoted lines about history repeating itself and about people making history under conditions they did not choose. It later influenced thinking about how dictators rise to power.

Look closer

  • Why does Marx compare 1851 to events over fifty years earlier?
  • What does the title page tell you about who published this and where?
  • How might writing about recent politics be different from writing about ancient history?

This book is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Karl Marx on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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