The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State

Basing himself on Marx’s notes on Lewis Henry Morgan’s Ancient Society, Engels commenced to produce a work that would be a historical materialist treatise on the emergence and development of the family, private property, and the state. What he produced is nothing short of an intellectual tour de force that is a powerful and detailed examination of the topic that engages with anthropology, history, and politics—and remains a landmark text to this day. In the words of Lenin, “This is one of the fundamental works of modern socialism, every sentence of which can be accepted with confidence, in the assurance that it has not been said at random but based on immense historical and political material.”