People's History and Socialist Theory (Routledge Revivals)

First published in 1981, this book brings together different types of work by numerous fragmented groups in the field of Marxist history and puts them in dialogue with each other. It takes stock of then recent work, explores the main new lines, and looks at the political and ideological circumstances shaping the direction of historical work, past and present. The scope of the book is international with contributions on African history, fascism and anti-fascism, French labour history, and the transition from feudalism to capitalism. It also incorporates feminist history and gives attention to some of the leading questions raised for social history by the women’s movement.

Table of Contents:
Foreword; Editorial Prefaces; People’s history Raphael Samuel History and theory Raphael Samuel; Papers; People’s History; 1 People’s history or total history Peter Burke 2 The changing image of the Scottish peasantry, 1745-1980 Ian Carter 3 worker-historian of the 1920s Ruskin History Workshop Students Collective; Local History; 4 A ghostly pavement: the political implications of local working-class history Ken Worple 5 Beyond Autobiography Jerry White 6 The politics of community problems Stephen Yeo; Oral Tradition; 7 The class struggle in fourteenth-century England Rosamond Faith 8 ‘Worms of the Earth’: the miners’ own story Dave Douglass 9 The new oral History in France Paul Thompson; Peasant Studies; 10 Village economies Peter Worsley 11 The Scottish peasantry Ian Carter 12 A museum of peasant life in Emilia Alessandro Triulzi; The State; 13 The state and social domination in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Prussia Alf Lüdtke 14 State and peasantry in colonial Africa John Lonsdale; Capitalism; 15 The transition from feudalism to capitalism: renewal of the debate Hans Medick 16 Primitive accumulation revisited Michael Ignatieff; Socialism; 17 Utopian socialism reconsidered Gareth Stedman Jones 18 Communist Party history Perry Anderson; Feminism; 19 Socialist feminism: utopian or scientific? Barbara Taylor 20 Gender division and class formation in the Birmingham middle class, 1780-1850 Catherine Hall 21 Feminism and labour history Anna Davin 22 Women’s history in the USA Ellen Ross; Fascism and Anti-Fascism; 23 The historiography of the Spanish Civil War Paul Preston 24 The Spanish Civil War Ronald Fraser 25 ‘Subversiveness’ and anti-fascism in Italy 26 Open questions on Nazism Tim Mason 27 Anti-fascism in post-war Germany Lutz Niethammer; Cultural Studies; 28 The ‘discovery’ of popular culture Peter Burke 29 Notes on deconstructing ‘the popular’ Stuart Hall; Socialist History in Europe; 30 Revolutionary heritage: the German Peasant War of 1525 Bob Scribner 31 Through the undergrowth: capitalist development and social formation in nineteenth century France Andrew Lincoln 32 ‘Le Social’: the lost tradition in French labour history Jacques Ranciére 33 From Gramsci to ‘workerism’: notes on Italian working-class history Sandra Pescarolo 34 ‘To be or not to be’, socialist historian in Denmark Niels Finn Christiansen and Jens Rahbek Rasmussen; African History; 35 Decolonising African history Alessandro Triulzi 36 Towards a people’s history of South Africa? Recent developments in the historiography of South Africa Shula Marks 37 Slavery in pre-colonial Africa Richard Rathbone 38 How not to be a Marxist historian: the Althusserian threat to African history Robin Law; Labour History; 39 The Webbs as historians of trade unionism 40 Ruhr miners and their historians Franz-Josef Brüggemeier 41 The class struggle at Renault Patrick Fidenson; Debates; Political Economy; 42 Marxism and classical political economy Michael Ignatieff; Religion; 43 Methodism and the common people John Walsh; Sexual Politics; 44 The trouble with ‘patricarchy’ Sheila Rowbotham 45 In defence of ‘patriarchy’ Sally Alexander and Barbard Taylor; Culturalism: Debates around The Poverty of Theory; 46 Editorial Note Raphael Samuel 47 In defence of theory Stuart Hall 48 Against absolutism Richard Johnson 49 The politics of theory E.P. Thompson; Afterword; History Workshop, 1966-1980 Raphael Samuel