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Preface to the First Edition, 1884
Engels explains the book as the execution of a bequest: Karl Marx had intended to present Morgan's findings himself. He states the materialist premise — that history is decided by the twofold production of the means of existence and of human beings themselves — and credits what is Morgan's and what is his own.
Marx's unfinished plan and Engels's bequestThe twofold production of life: labor and the familyMorgan's rediscovery of the materialist conceptionWhat Engels added to Morgan's material