The Condition of the Working Class in England

In 1842, a young Friedrich Engels traveled to England to see the state of the working class in the nation’s rapidly expanding industrial cities. His observations over the course of the next twenty-one months lead to the 1845 publication of The Condition of the Working Class in England. The book reports on the dire state of the proletariat, contextualizes their struggle within the politics of the time, and makes predictions for how the fragile tension between workers and capitalists must evolve. It remains to this day a highly detailed account of the abuses the industrial revolution brought upon the English working class.

First written for German audiences, the book didn’t see an official English translation until 1885. This edition is based on the 1892 London publication, and contains a preface by Engels explaining how the situation in England evolved in the intervening time, along with a powerful dedication to the workers of England. A major stepping stone on the route to Engel’s and Marx’s Communist Manifesto, The Condition of the Working Class in England has remained in continuous publication.

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