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Primary sourceBook1845-1846

The German Ideology

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels · 1845-1846

Manuscripts written by Marx and Engels in 1845-46 that first laid out historical materialism, unpublished until long after Marx's death.

Marx co-wrote this manuscript, which contains his first systematic statement of historical materialism.

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Handwritten manuscript page in German script with a heading at the top and dense cursive text in multiple paragraphs, consistent with the first page of the manuscript of The German Ideology.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, manuscript page of The German Ideology, 1845-1846.

About this source

What it is

This is a set of manuscripts written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels between 1845 and 1846. The authors could not find a publisher, and the work only appeared in full in 1932, decades after both men had died.

Why it matters

In these pages, Marx and Engels first systematically set out historical materialism: the idea that the material conditions of people's lives shape their ideas and consciousness, not the other way around. The manuscripts also contain sharp polemics against other German philosophers of the time, showing the intellectual arguments Marx was having as he developed his theory.

Look closer

  • What does it mean that this important text sat unpublished for decades?
  • Why might Marx and Engels have spent so much space arguing against other philosophers?
  • How does a handwritten manuscript differ from a printed book in what it can tell us?

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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1965

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