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Lyon, 1848–1852
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 January 2016
Much of political sociology has its roots in the history of the French Revolution of 1848. Between the collapse of the July Monarchy in February 1848 and the proclamation of the Second Empire in December 1852, powerful factions vied for control over the state. The outcomes were uncertain until the coup d’etat of December 1851 ended the Second Republic and secured the control of the Bonapartist party. Generations of analysts would carry on the debates of contemporaries over the failure of the working class to take state power in the months following the February Revolution.
Among contemporary interpretations, the most enduring was offered by Karl Marx. In The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Marx (1963) traced the shifting coalitions of class actors against the background of events which culminated in the demobilization of the democratic-socialist movement and the coup d’etat.
Author’s Note: This article is a revised version of a paper presented at the 1978 annual meeting of the Social Science History Association, Columbus, Ohio. I am grateful to Carol Conell, J. Craig Jenkins, Michael Polen, William Sewell, Jr., David Snyder, Charles Stephenson, and Charles Tilly for their comments on various drafts.