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Primary sourceBook1845 (written November 1844)

The Holy Family

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels · 1845 (written November 1844)

The first book Marx co-wrote with Friedrich Engels, a sharp critique of the Young Hegelians published in 1845.

This is the first book Marx wrote jointly with Engels, beginning their lifelong intellectual partnership.

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Title page of the 1845 book in German blackletter type reading 'Die heilige Familie, oder Kritik der kritischen Kritik. Gegen Bruno Bauer & Consorten. Von Friedrich Engels und Karl Marx. Frankfurt a. M., Literarische Anstalt (J. Rütten), 1845.' The paper is yellowed with brown spots.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Holy Family, title page, 1845.

About this source

What it is

The Holy Family, or Critique of Critical Critique, is a book written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in November 1844 and published in 1845. Its sarcastic title, suggested by the publisher, mocked the Bauer brothers and their followers among the Young Hegelians.

Why it matters

This was the first joint writing project of Marx and Engels, marking the start of their long partnership. The book criticised the popular academic trend of Young Hegelian thought and sparked public controversy, including a direct reply from Bruno Bauer. It shows Marx developing early ideas, later discussed further in The German Ideology, about how workers could see through illusions created by their social conditions.

Look closer

  • Why would Marx and Engels choose a mocking title for a serious philosophical argument?
  • What does the fact that two authors collaborated on this book tell you about how their ideas developed together?
  • What is left out of a book attacking other thinkers' ideas rather than laying out a full positive programme?

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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