Books

Paris: A. Frank, & C. G. Vogler, Brussels,, 1847. A comprehensive exposition of the materialistic conception of history First edition of Marx's caustic attack on Proudhon, "the bitterest attack delivered by one thinker upon another since the celebrated polemics of the Renaissance" (Isaiah Berlin), one of 800 copies printed. In 1846, Proudhon had published his celebrated book, La Philosophie de la Misère, inviting Marx's response to it in a letter: "j'attends votre férule critique" (I await your critical rod). Marx wasted no time in reading it and in writing a scathing reply to it in French, thereby creating a permanent rift in their relationship. "The book is a masterpiece of polemical writing... It has also another and greater merit. In it we get the first approach to a comprehensive exposition of the materialistic conception of history. Here we find elaborated the theory that history must be interpreted in the light of economic development... The Misère de la Philosophie…