Abstract

This essay is the introduction to the italian translation of Mazzini's "Thoughts upon Democracy" in Europe (1846-1847), the first that reproduces the original English version. The author reconstructs the English stimulated by the appearance Mazzini's book. By suggesting an ethical and progressive conception of democracy opposed to the theories supported by the individualists, the utilitarists and the comunists, Mazzini participates, through this essay, in the English debate over democracy aroused by the publication of the Cracow "Manifesto" (1846). Some of the questions raised by Mazzini in his Thoughts will find an answer in the second chapter of the "Manifesto of the Communist Party" written by Marx and Engels.