The texts are presented in chronological order, so that readers can get a feel for how Proudhon’s ideas and ways of expressing himself changed over time. We have aimed to present newly translated material in full and have edited those which are available in English already. Any edits are indicated by bracketed ellipses and any additions are surrounded by brackets. We have tried to reproduce Proudhon’s own stresses and capitalisations.
For those interested in reading the full versions of the material we present here, then please visit Shawn Wilbur’s New Proudhon Library (www.proudhonlibrary.org). A complete translation of The Philosophy of Progress is there, along with other material.
This is but a small part of Proudhon’s works and there are many key works, such as Confessions of a Revolutionary and The Political Capacity of the Working Classes, which should be made available to the English-speaking world in full. This anthology should hopefully show why such a task would be worthwhile. For those interested in such a project, please visit the translation project at Collective Reason (www.collectivereason.org).
Lastly, the material in this book will be available on-line at www.property-is-theft.org. We plan to add new translations as and when they become available as well as supplementary material on Proudhon. In addition, the site will have links to complete versions of works we have provided extracts from.