Etymology

historical materialism

Today it means: A methodological approach to the study of society, economics, and history, looking for the causes of developments and changes in human society in the means by which humans collectively produce the necessities of life. Full definition →

German historischer Materialismus
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The story

  1. German · calque ofhistorischer Materialismus
  2. English todayhistorical materialism

Calque of German historischer Materialismus. Its earliest extant attestation - in German - is in Friedrich Engels's letter [5 August 1890] to Conrad Schmidt. Its earliest extant public attestation - in English - is in Engels's 1892 "Introduction to the English Edition" to his 1880 booklet Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.