Sounds like a great bargain. A bunch of people I don’t know and can’t even imagine, who no doubt will have other things on their minds, will find an ancient book on matters that have long been forgotten, written in a language nobody any more knows how to read ­ if anybody knows how to read at all in the year 3000.

And today, 150 years later, the Paris Commune of 1871 continues to resound as “a synonym of social struggle,” inspiring the slogans of radical democratic movements from Hong Kong to Spain to New York.