About this episode

This episode features an audiobook reading of Karl Marx's 'The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte', detailing the political events surrounding Louis Bonaparte's rise to power.

Audiobook of "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte" by Karl Marx, published 1852. Read it online https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/ Article on it to be published in Solidarity 771: https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2026-07-14/marx-18th-brumaire On December 2 1851, followers of President Louis Bonaparte (Napoleon's nephew) broke up the Legislative Assembly and established a dictatorship. A year later, Louis Bonaparte proclaimed himself Emperor Napoleon III. Marx wrote The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon between December 1851 and March 1852. The "Eighteenth Brumaire" refers to November 9, 1799 in the French Revolutionary Calendar — the day the first Napoleon Bonaparte had made himself dictator by a coup d'etat. Chapters and rough timestamps: 00:00 Preface: Marx 1869 04:24 Preface: Engels 1885 09:38 Chapter I (Feb. 1848 to Dec. 1851) 39:03 Chapter II (Downfall of the Republicans) 01:15:05 Chapter III (Defeat of Petty-bourgeois democracy) 01:58:56 Chapter IV (Rise of Louis Bonaparte) 02:28:27 Chapter V (National Assembly vs. Bonaparte) 03:21:34 Chapter VI (Victory of Bonaparte) 04:19:09 Chapter VII (Summary) #7 of Marxist points of…

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