The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte: A Quick Read edition

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\- Reading time of the complete text: about 4 hours
\- Reading time of the summarized text: 6 minutes

"The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte" is an essay written by Karl Marx
in 1852, discussing the French coup of 1851 in which Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte
assumed dictatorial powers. The essay presents a taxonomy of the mass of the
bourgeoisie, which Marx says impounded the republic like its property. It also
shows more criticism of the proletariat than is typical of his other works,
referring to the bureaucracy as a "giant parasitic body" and describing
widespread perceptions of the proletariat as a "party of anarchy, socialism,
and communism." The essay contains the most famous formulation of Marx's view
of the role of the individual in history, often translated as: "Men make their
own history, but they do not make it as they please." Marx's interpretation of
Louis Bonaparte's rise and rule is of interest to later scholars studying the
nature and meaning of fascism. The opening lines of the book are the source of
one of Marx's most quoted and misquoted statements, that historical entities
appear two times, "the first as tragedy, then as farce." Marx's comment is
most likely about Hegel's Lectures on the Philosophy of History (1837), Part
III: The Roman World, Section II: Rome from the Second Punic War to the
Emperors, regarding Caesar.