diff --git a/pelican/readers.py b/pelican/readers.py
index 842602aa..a68836ad 100644
--- a/pelican/readers.py
+++ b/pelican/readers.py
@@ -21,10 +21,7 @@ from pelican.contents import Author, Category, Page, Tag
 from pelican.utils import SafeDatetime, escape_html, get_date, pelican_open, \
     posixize_path
 
-try:
-    from markdown import Markdown
-except ImportError:
-    Markdown = False  # NOQA
+from markdown import Markdown # NOQA
 
 # Metadata processors have no way to discard an unwanted value, so we have
 # them return this value instead to signal that it should be discarded later.
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 06da7628..6ef896de 100755
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ from os.path import join, relpath
 from setuptools import setup
 
 requires = ['feedgenerator >= 1.9', 'jinja2 >= 2.7', 'pygments', 'docutils',
-            'pytz >= 0a', 'blinker', 'unidecode', 'six >= 1.4',
+            'pytz >= 0a', 'blinker', 'unidecode', 'six >= 1.4', 'markdown',
             'python-dateutil']
 
 entry_points = {