Okay, Here I’m gonna outline the entire syllabus for a decent history of Socialism up to 1918. This is based on a class I took at my university. This post will be the syllabus outline. I will then be making posts for all texts, including secondary sources. I will go week by week just like the original class. Yes I did all the readings, and yes it was not fun sometimes lol.

NOTE: Marx and Engels are absent from this syllabus. The reason for this is that Marx in addition to not being the dominant figure in radical circles during most of his life with a lot of work unpublished, everyone also knows Marx. Any list will generally have the manifesto, capital, the German Ideology, Socialism Utopian and scientific etc on it. I will interject and add those, however they won’t be the focus here. So although I will put them, I won’t be putting in depth discussion or secondary sources and they won’t get their posts.

Here we go,

Introduction:

This course is an introduction to radical thought in Europe across the long nineteenth century from the French to the Russian revolutions. This period marks the entrance of the lower orders onto the political stage—and not merely in moments of revolt, but as a permanent presence around which politics and government subsequently must needs orient, and not merely to be recorded in the texts of their aristocratic enemies, but as inspiring and expositing their own political doctrines. This course is an introduction to radical thought in Europe across the long nineteenth century from the French to the Russian revolutions. This period marks the entrance of the lower orders onto the political stage—and not merely in moments of revolt, but as a permanent presence around which politics and government subsequently must needs orient, and not merely to be recorded in the texts of their aristocratic enemies, but as inspiring and expositing their own political doctrines.

Schedule of Readings:

Primary source readings will average approximately 100–150 pages per week. There may be some weeks with heavier reading. They are marked in bold

Secondary sources are given as suggestions obligatory or exhaustive, and are normal text.

Week 1

• Claeys, Gregory. “Non-Marxian Socialism 1815-1914.” In The Cambridge History of Nineteenth-Century Political Thought, edited by Gareth Stedman Jones and Gregory Claeys, 521–55. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
• Hobsbawm, Eric J. Echoes of the Marseillaise: Two Centuries Look Back on the French Revolution. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1990. pp. 1-61. (61 pages)
• Claeys, Gregory, and Christine Lattek. “Radicalism, Republicanism and Revolutionism: From the Principles of ’89 to the Origins of Modern Terrorism.” In The Cambridge History of Nineteenth-Century Political Thought, edited by Gareth Stedman Jones and Gregory Claeys, 200–253. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Week 2

• Robespierre, Maximilien. Virtue and Terror. New York, NY: Verso, 2007. “On the Silver Mark,” “Draft Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen,” “On Revolutionary Government,” “On the Principles of Political Morality,” (pp. 5-19, 98-107, 108-126)(41 pages)
• Buonarroti, Phillippo. Buonarroti’s History of Babeuf’s Conspiracy for Equality. Edited by James Bronterre O’Brien. London: H. Hetherington, 1836. pp. 20-39, 54-60, 64-70, 88-94, 100-6 (43 pages)
• Buonarroti, Phillippo. Buonarroti’s History of Babeuf’s Conspiracy for Equality. Edited by James Bronterre O’Brien. London: H. Hetherington, 1836. pp. 148-176, 180-1, 184-205, 212-3 plus the footnote that runs to 222, 227-9. (62 pages)
• Birchall, Ian. The Spectre of Babeuf. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, 2016.
• Lovell, David W. “The French Revolution and the Origins of Socialism: The Case of Early French Socialism.” French History 6, no. 2 (1992): 185–205.
• Rosanvallon, Pierre. “Revolutionary Democracy,” and “The Republic of Universal Suffrage.” In Democracy Past and Future. Edited by Samuel Moyn. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006. Pp. 79-97 and 98-116

Week 3

• Paine, Thomas, Agrarian Justice
• Calhoun, Craig. The Roots of Radicalism: Tradition, the Public Sphere, and Early Nineteenth-Century Social Movements. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012. Read Chapters 1 “Resituating Radicalism” or 2 “Social Movements and the Idea of Progress” (pp. 12-81)(69 pages) Read one or the other chapter, depending on interest.
• Claeys, Gregory. “The French Revolution Debate and British Political Thought.” History of Political Thought 11, no. 1 (1990): 59–80. [If you like, just read the introduction, pg. 59-62, and the summary of Paine, pg. 64-67, if you’re very pressed for time. But it’s useful to read the rest from 67 to the end. ]
• Claeys, Gregory. “The Origins of the Rights of Labor: Republicanism, Commerce, and the Construction of Modern Social Theory in Britain, 1796-1805.” The Journal of Modern History 66, no. 2 (1994): 249–90. [read at least the intro and the Paine segment (which is about Agrarian Justice), pg. 249-263. You may also want to read the Godwin segment, 277-9; he is often claimed as an ancestor by anarchists or left-libertarians; I strongly recommend reading the Charles Hall section (279-88)]
• Owen, Robert. A New View of Society and Other Writings. New York, NY: Penguin Classics, 1991.
• A New View of Society (1813), preface and parts 1, 3, 4 (1-18, 37-93) (74 pages) “Observations on the Effect of the Manufacturing System,” (93-104) (11 pages)
• Claeys, Gregory. Citizens and Saints: Politics and Anti-Politics in Early British Socialism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. ———. Machinery, Money and the Millennium: From Moral Economy to Socialism, 1815-1860. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1987.
• Jones, Gareth Stedman. “Malthus, Nineteenth Century Socialism, and Marx.” The Historical Journal, 2019, 1–16.

Week 4

• Owen, Robert. A New View of Society and Other Writings. New York, NY: Penguin Classics, 1991. Sections “Further Development for the Plan for the Relief of the Poor and for the Emancipation of Mankind,” (136-158) (22 pages) [make sure you read the correct “Further Development”— there are two with very similar titles!] “Report to the County of Lanark” (1820) (250-309) (59 pages)
• Heighton, William, An Address to the Members of Trade Societies (1827)
• Skidmore, Thomas, The Rights of Man to Property! (1829), 1829) Preface, 5-16, 28-50, (skim 63-71 if interested in his comments on Paine), 77-80, 97-108, 113-122, 125-147, 150-160, 172-174, 192-197, 204-207, 226-228, 230-231, 238-243, 247-249, 264-276, 294-300, 316, 341-345, 355-361, 374-390.

Week 5

• John Gray, The Social System (1831). Selections Chapter I to V, but within Chapter V, please skip (or skim if you prefer) p. 76 (mid) to p. 89 (mid). Those pages aim to argue that metallic money can still function for small change without messing up his new fiat labor-money monetary system. Read the last couple pages of Chapter V that follow that discussion. Then flip to Chapter VI, and read pp. 93-114 and 126-8, which will add his thoughts on wages, (in)equality, and education.

Note: It’s now probably worth it to consider the modifications and modulations of Owenism, of which you will now have been introduced to at least four variants: Early Owen, Mature Owen, Heighton, and Gray. They differ on their normative grounds, the problems they diagnose, their proposed solutions, their envisaged social schemes, their modes of reform, propagation, and transition, and probably several other axes.

• Claeys, Gregory. Citizens and Saints: Politics and Anti-Politics in Early British Socialism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. ———. Machinery, Money and the Millennium: From Moral Economy to Socialism, 1815-1860. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1987
• Thompson, Noel W. The People’s Science: The Popular Political Economy of Exploitation and Crisis 1816-34. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. ———. The Market And Its Critics: Socialist Political Economy In Nineteenth Century Britain. London ; New York: Routledge, 1988.
• Saad-Filho, Alfredo. “Labor, Money, and ‘Labour-Money’: A Review of Marx’s Critique of John Gray’s Monetary Analysis.” History of Political Economy 25, no. 1 (1993): 65–84.
• Hunt, E.K. “The Relation of the Ricardian Socialists to Ricardo and Marx.” *Science