Proudhon Library

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William Batchelder Greene pays a visit to P.-J. Proudhon

September 19, 2026 Shawn P. Wilbur
We know surprisingly little about the details of the life of William Batchelder Greene. We know that he was an impressive character: handsome, intelligent, but eccentric, a bit tragic. People noticed him and there are scattered recollections all over the place, dating back to his youth, but it has always looked like a big job to try to gather enough of them to produce a biographical account. One of the facts that seems well-established, however, is that he met Proudhon during his stay in France, where he had taken his family after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act. And we have some very general impressions, provided by Greene to The Word (2. no. 9, January, 1874):

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A New Proudhon Library: Next steps

July 8, 2026 Shawn P. Wilbur
After the month-long interruption in April, I’m finally settling down to work on the chronological review of Proudhon’s work that I have mentioned recently — which is also the process that will produce some print-on-demand volumes for A New Proudhon Library. I’ve been working without my usual daily quotas and deadlines, for the first time in over three years, and spending a lot of time thinking — no doubt sometimes over-thinking — about the translation strategies I began to develop a decade ago, while puttering away at Proudhon’s journalism and correspondence.

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Proudhon Library

Le Représentant du Peuple: Specimen issues (October-November 1847)

June 20, 2026 Shawn P. Wilbur
Links: A New Proudhon Library [project page] Le Représentant du Peuple: misc. writings Prospectus of Le Peuple — published after May 20, 1847 In 1789, a famous publicist wrote: “What is the Third Estate? — Nothing. — What ought it to be? — Everything.” What Sieyès said in 89 regarding the bourgeoisie, we now say regarding the people and on behalf of the people. The people are everything in civilization: defenders of the homeland, creators of public wealth, revealers of science, poetry and art, supreme check on government. There is no idea, no seed, no fruit, no marvel that does […]
Proudhon Library

Correspondence of P.-J. Proudhon (Lacroix)

April 17, 2026 Shawn P. Wilbur
Year-by-year word counts: 1832-1839 — 43,500 words 1840 — 21,000 1841 — 30,000 1842 — 16,500 1843 — 14,000 1844 — 16,500 1845 — 4,000 1846 — 11,500 1847 — 14,500 1848 — 24,500 1848 — 27,500 1850 — 72,500 1851 — 52,000 1852 — 71,000 1853 — 41,500 1854 — 40,000 1855 — 40,500 1856 — 36,500 1857 — 26,000 1858 — 82,000 1859 — 78,000 1860 — 74,500 1861 — 87,500 1862 — 74,500 1863 — 81,500 1864 — 55,000 1865 — 1,500 P.-J. Proudhon, Application for the Suard Pension (1837) P.-J. Proudhon, Letter to the Members of […]
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E. E. Fribourg, “The International Workingman’s Association” (1871)

April 8, 2025 Shawn P. Wilbur
The history of the International Workingman’s Association is obviously contested territory, with Marxist and anarchist accounts competing for attention with works, like Timothy Messer-Kruse’s very interesting account of The Yankee International, which emphasize other factions and other dynamics within the International. Of the existing histories, I am probably most partial to Robert Graham’s We Do Not Fear Anarchy, We Invoke It: The First International and the Origins of the Anarchist Movement, which strikes me as a balanced account. But I’ll admit a fascination with a number of clearly partisan accounts that manage to cover comparatively unfamiliar ground.

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Text and Notes: Justice in the Revolution and in the Church: First Study

September 10, 2024 Shawn P. Wilbur
In the First Study, Proudhon attempts to establish the foundation for his study, presenting some basic definitions and axioms, much as he did at the beginning of The Creation of Order in Humanity. The first chapter, where that foundation-building is most elementary, was subject to very light revision in the revised and expanded edition, and I have, for the most part, simply provided the text from 1860. Subsequent chapters were subject to both considerable revision and considerable expansion — and the differences are instructive enough that I’ll focus on them a bit more than in most studies.

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Text and Notes: Justice in the Revolution and in the Church: Prologue / Preliminary Address

September 5, 2024 Shawn P. Wilbur
As a way to focus my efforts on the fine revision and annotation of my translation of Justice in the Revolution and in the Church, I’m going to post a series of annotated sections documenting the major changes in the work between the two editions, with preliminary notes for the New Proudhon Library Glossary and some thoughts about some of the major interpretive issues.

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P.-J. Proudhon, Proposal for a Society of the Perpetual Exhibition (1855)

April 18, 2024 Shawn P. Wilbur
The newest draft translation added to the New Proudhon Library project is the proposal for a Society of the Perpetual Exhibition, in answer to a call by Emperor Napoleon III for uses for the Palais de l’Industrie built in Paris for the 1855 World Fair. The project resembles Proudhon’s mutual credit proposals, as well as the various schemes for association proposed by Bellegarrigue in the 1850s.

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