The XVIII Brumaire of Louis Napoleon is an essay written by Karl Marx. This essay discusses the French coup of 1851 in which Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte assumed dictatorial powers but refers to the Coup of 18 Brumaire in which Napoleon Bonaparte seized power in revolutionary France (9 November 1799, or 18 Brumaire Year VIII in the French Republican Calendar), in order to contrast it with the coup of 1851. It shows Marx in his form as a social and political historian, treating actual historical events from the viewpoint of his materialist conception of history.
