Status Updates From Dispatches for the New York...

Two articles on the Spanish counter-revolution in 1856 where the army, previously a center of revolutionary action, had degraded into reaction and a familiar sequence of the betrayal of the workers by the liberal middle classes was quickly achieved by the army and the crown.

The contagion of stock speculation in Germany reminds me of the Zola novel Money set at about the same time.

Marx reports that the UK forcing open the China market in the 1840s hadn’t led to much in the 1850s except opium. Describing the domestic market where most clothes were made in the home in China and comparing it to India makes me want to learn more about the economics of imperialism in India.

Great article on the hypocrisy on the British government, opium, and making a buck in China

Figured this would be the best intro for me to Marx since I know a fair amount about the period including some about his long distance editor, Whig impresario Thurlow Weed. Decided to skip the intro since the blurbs made the editors of this edition seem like BBC hacks. I’ll probably double back later. Article about the Taiping Rebellion was a nice overview of contemporary Sino-European relations for 1857

Reading this for Marx’s contemporary articles on the Opium War while I finish reading up on the Taiping civil war