Before Marx: Socialism and Communism in France, 1830–48

From the Inside Flap Originally published in 1983, Before Mark: Socialism and Communism in France, 1830-48 brings for the first time to the English reader an original documentation of socialism and communism in France in the period 1830-40, when these movements were in their earliest and most creative phases. Both the ideas and the rhetorical style reflect the aspirations and enthusiasm of the intellectual milieu in Paris when Karl Marx first encountered socialism on its home ground.The selections presented here come not from the better-known works of Saint-Simon, Fourier and Proudhon, but from largely unknown writers and activists whose tracts, pamphlets, radical journals, catechisms, almanacs, secret oaths and even banquet toasts made up the breadth and depth of the writings of school-teachers, lawyers, journalists, cabinet makers and factory labourers.The unmistakable evidence is that these oft-called 'utopians' in fact fashioned socialism from a carefully considered critique of British classical economics, a moral revulsion at the depredations of urban industrialism and a keen attention to the empirical realities of economic and social decay which capitalism and liberal governments not only could not solve, but actually abetted.Taken as a whole, this collection enables the reader to enter the movement: to meet the kind of people who were in it, to sense their moral outrage, to confront the ideas which shocked and inspired, to tempt the fate of censorship and imprisonment, and finally to understand how socialism was perceived as a singularly French tradition and an integral part of a broader movement of scientific, material, artistic and spiritual progress. From the Back Cover Paul E. Corcoran is Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Adelaide. He was born in the USA in 1944 and received degrees from Princeton University and Duke University. Before moving to Australia in 1974 he held appointments at Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginia (1969-70) and Rider College, Lawrenceville, New Jersey (1970-74). His previous book, Political Language and Rhetoric, was published in 1979. About the Author Paul E. Corcoran is a Research Associate in the Department of Politics, University of Adelaide, Australia.