Karl Marx's References To Fraas
Karl Marx took an interest in Fraas's work, writing to Engels on 25 March 1868 that he found Fraas's 1847 work Climate and the Vegetable World throughout the Ages, a History of Both "very interesting, especially as proving that climate and flora have changed in historic times".
Marx calls Fraas "a Darwinist before Darwin" and goes on to say:
This man is both a thoroughly learned philologist (he has written books in Greek) and a chemist, agricultural expert, etc. The whole conclusion is that cultivation when it progresses in a primitive way and is not consciously controlled (as a bourgeois of course he does not arrive at this), leaves deserts behind it, Persia, Mesopotamia, etc., Greece. Here again another unconscious socialist tendency!
These references to Fraas are of interest to recent scholars of Marx's ecological ideas.
The standard author abbreviation Fraas is used to indicate this individual as the author when citing a botanical name.Read more about this topic: Karl Nikolas Fraas
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