ABSTRACT

The paper explores a new aspect of the development of the Books of Crisis: the fact that Marx’s empirical research on the 1857 crisis in these notebooks was undertaken as the direct continuation of his study of Thomas Tooke and William Newmarch's A History of Prices. Our investigation will provide clues to better understand the structure and contents of the documents. Particularly, we provide new evidence for why Marx started his research on the 1857 crisis with the French economy, which managed to steer clear of the crisis, rather than with England, which was already acutely affected by it.