R. B. Rose
Gracchus Babeuf: The First Revolutionary Communist.
Stanford University Press, 1978. First edition. viii/434 pages.
Volume, measuring approximately 6.5" x 9.5", is bound in black cloth, with stamped gilt lettering to spine. Book is in fine condition, with firm binding, clean and bright interior. Dust jacket, with price of $18.50 on front flap, exhibit wear and minor loss at bottom edges. Jacket is preserved in mylar cover. 
"This is the first full-length biography of a central figure in the history of communism and the French Revolution. Chiefly remembered as the leader of the so-called "Conspiracy of the Equals" of 1796, an attempt to overthrow the Directory and replace it with a communist dictatorship. Babeuf is regarded by Marxist historians as a direct precursor of modern communism. He was, in fact, the first historical figure of consequence to advocate and attempt the attainment of a communist order by a political revolution carried out by a conscious minority.
The author sees the events of 1796 both as the culminating chapter in the career of a dedicated revolutionary and as the product of unique eighteenth-century circumstances and attitudes. He traces Babeuf's life and evolution of his ideas before and during the Revolution, in the process illuminating the course of events in Babeuf's native Picardy in 1789-92 and in Paris during the critical years 1793-1795.
The author concludes that Babeuf was a "personal insurrectionist: rather that a would-be communist dictator, always restlessly seeking effective ways to marshal the forces of the people against political tyranny and social injustice."