Marx's 'Eighteenth Brumaire': (Post)Modern Interpretations

Marx's account of the rise of Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte is one of his most important texts. Written after the defeat of the 1848 revolution in France and Bonaparte’s subsequent coup, it is a concrete analysis that raises enduring theoretical questions about the state, class conflict and ideology.

Unlike his earlier analyses, Marx develops a nuanced argument concerning the independence of the state from class interests, the different types of classes, and the determining power of ideas and…