8vo (171x110 mm), (4)-viii-600 pages. binding : Contemporary quarter sheep, gilt flat spine. First cover for Société Phalanstérienne.
Fifth edition. Major work by Cabet in which he describes his socialist utopia. Etienne Cabet places himself alongside Charles Fourier or Robert Owen among the promoters of alternative social projects. Cabet is the first philosopher to describe himself as a communist. In 1849, Cabet went to the United States to try to found an Icarian community there.
Copy which was bound for François Barrier, central personality of the Fourierist movement, he adhered to the Fourierist doctrine in 1843. He was, in 1845, one of the founders of the Phalansterian project of the African Agricultural Union and became the main leader and financial support from the Lyon School of Society in the 1850s. He created a “Fourierist” bank which notably financed the Texas phalanstery. In 1864, he left Lyon and his career as a surgeon to go to Paris to reorganize the School of Society and devote himself to writing Fourierist treatises.