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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
National
Mark Brown North of England correspondent

Friedrich Engels ‘took creative liberties’ with descriptions of class divides in Manchester

A 1938 print drawing of a cellar in Manchester.
Friedrich Engels described Manchester as a deeply segregated city. His words were taken at face value by many historians. Illustration: Manchester Libraries

Friedrich Engels stands accused of exaggerating, or perhaps taking “creative liberties”, with just how segregated Manchester was in the mid-19th century, a study has found.

The great socialist thinker, who co-authored with Karl Marx the Communist manifesto, was a Manchester resident, appalled and galvanised by the squalor and inequality he saw in the city.

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