Best book on radical history

[AmateurAgitator]

Apparently The World Turned Upside Down by Christopher Hill is good. I recently got a copy, haven't had a proper read of it yet though. The Making of the English Working Class by E.P. Thompson is good. And I hear that A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn is good aswell, have always wanted a copy of that book. With the Peasants of Aragon is a history book technically, about the Spanish revolution - then you've got Collectives in the Spanish Revolution by Gaston Leval which is said to be a classic and very detailed - I also have that but have not read it yet. Another one that springs to mind is the very good History of the Makhnovist Movement by Peter Arshinov, aswell as Anarchy's Cossack by Alexander Skirda (another book about the Makhnovists)

Is there really such a thing as a 'best' book on radical history? I really question that concept.

 

[The39thStep]

Apparently The World Turned Upside Down by Christopher Hill is good. I recently got a copy, haven't had a proper read of it yet though. The Making of the English Working Class by E.P. Thompson is good. And I hear that A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn is good aswell, have always wanted a copy of that book.

Is there really such a thing as a 'best' book on radical history? I really question that concept.

Christopher Hill's book is good. Anything by Thompson or Hobsbawm is worth reading.

 

[AmateurAgitator]

Christopher Hill's book is good. Anything by Thompson or Hobsbawm is worth reading.

Hobswawm has his uses, but I am told he completely misrepresents anarchists so I'm wary of him.

 

[AmateurAgitator]

Christopher Hill's book is good.

I think I'd better give it a go right now.

 

[nogojones]

handy iforgraphic to go with it

https://d24gssfg51q0py.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/16104746/Faulkner-Timeline-for-website.jpg

A history of the world that covers Europe and the Mediterranean.

 

[The39thStep]

Hobswawm has his uses, but I am told he completely misrepresents anarchists so I'm wary of him.

Possibly although I've never noticed to be fair. I think as with most writers you have to read between the lines however his overall issue is, of course, the working class as the agent of change , the building of the labour movements and on that subject, he is very good IMO. If we only read authors who favour whatever political current we support its a small pond.

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

I think I'd better give it a go right now.

I read that when I was in school. Knocked me for six. Hill's best book. Very thematic and imaginative. Really let's you feel the excitement of the revolutionary period of the English Civil War.

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

Possibly although I've never noticed to be fair. I think as with most writers you have to read between the lines however his overall issue is, of course, the working class as the agent of change , the building of the labour movements and on that subject, he is very good IMO. If we only read authors who favour whatever political current we support its a small pond.

He does, at times, make the classic Marxist error of thinking that 'the peasantry' were in some sense less 'advanced' than the industrial working class. Perhaps he moderated that stance a bit as he got older.

 

[hitmouse]

Apparently The World Turned Upside Down by Christopher Hill is good. I recently got a copy, haven't had a proper read of it yet though. The Making of the English Working Class by E.P. Thompson is good. And I hear that A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn is good aswell, have always wanted a copy of that book.

Zinn is the best radical historian cos his book got to be on a (not very good overall) episode of the Sopranos:

Hobsbawm could never.

With the Peasants of Aragon is a history book technically, about the Spanish revolution - then you've got Collectives in the Spanish Revolution by Gaston Leval which is said to be a classic and very detailed - I also have that but have not read it yet.

Agustin Guillamon's stuff on the Spanish revolution is meant to be brilliant, I've read his book on the Friends of Durruti, not read Ready for Revolution: The CNT Defense Committees in Barcelona, 1933–1938 or Insurrection: The Bloody Events of May 1937 in Barcelona but they both sound great.

Is there really such a thing as a 'best' book on radical history? I really question that concept.

Yeah, history is a big area, it might be more possible to say the best book on the radical history of Haiti or similar. Which is meant to be CLR James, I've not read that one either.

He does, at times, make the classic Marxist error of thinking that 'the peasantry' were in some sense less 'advanced' than the industrial working class. Perhaps he moderated that stance a bit as he got older.

Yeah, I remember being absolutely fucking infuriated by Bandits, which as I remember it had a very strong strain of "anarchism is what dumb undisciplined peasants do, then if they get properly proletarianised then they can form grown-up Marxist parties, and that's how the PCI was able to stop Mussolini from coming to power." Maybe I'm being unfair but idk.

 

[hitmouse]

I would definitely recommend Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments by Saidiya Hartman, an approach to writing history I'd not really seen before, proper freewheeling wild stuff. I loved it, I can just about imagine how someone might hate it, but I think it's a book it'd be very hard to be indifferent to.

 

[AmateurAgitator]

Agustin Guillamon's stuff on the Spanish revolution is meant to be brilliant, I've read his book on the Friends of Durruti, not read Ready for Revolution: The CNT Defense Committees in Barcelona, 1933–1938 or Insurrection: The Bloody Events of May 1937 in Barcelona but they both sound great.

I have both of those first two coz I've heard they are both great. I just need to get around to reading them

 

[AmateurAgitator]

He does, at times, make the classic Marxist error of thinking that 'the peasantry' were in some sense less 'advanced' than the industrial working class. Perhaps he moderated that stance a bit as he got older.

I hear he wrote a book called Primitive Rebels in which he condemned anarchism. Usual tired, bourgeois academic Marxist rubbish so I've been informed by a comrade - but not one that is a member of the ACG. Apparently it's quite common for historians to focus on Individualists or eccentrics to demean us or those involved in Propaganda by the Deed. Also, regarding E.P. Thompson, he apparently came closer to anarchism later on in his life, that's anecdotal though.

 

[AmateurAgitator]

Possibly although I've never noticed to be fair. I think as with most writers you have to read between the lines however his overall issue is, of course, the working class as the agent of change , the building of the labour movements and on that subject, he is very good IMO. If we only read authors who favour whatever political current we support its a small pond.

As I said, Hobswaum has his uses and I don't just read people who believe in exactly the same stuff as me. There is alot of anarchist/libertarian communist stuff that I want to read at the moment though. Infact, I have got the Age of Revolution by Hobswaum, but I haven't read too much of it - to be honest I struggled with it and then I think I just gave up on it. It kind of did my head in at the time tbh.

 

[hitmouse]

I hear he wrote a book called Primitive Rebels in which he condemned anarchism. Usual tired, bourgeois academic Marxist rubbish so I've been informed by a comrade - but not one that is a member of the ACG. Apparently it's quite common for historians to focus on Individualists or eccentrics to demean us or those involved in Propaganda by the Deed. Also, regarding E.P. Thompson, he apparently came closer to anarchism later on in his life, that's anecdotal though.

Oh yeah, think that's the one I was thinking of, I think I got that and Bandits mixed up.

 

[RedRedRose]

If you’re interested in colonial and environmental themes, I would also recommend:
Mike Davis - Late Victorian Holocausts
Raj Patel and Jason Moore - A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things

 

[JimW]

A history of the world that covers Europe and the Mediterranean.

That was what struck me as well, shame.

 

[Kate Sharpley]

Some ideas:
Anything by Paul Avrich Paul Avrich 1931-2006: a historian who listened to anarchist voices
Antonio Téllez: Sabate would be the logical one to start with Antonio Téllez Solà: the man who taught us that there were some who never gave up
Osvaldo Bayer's Rebellion in Patagonia Flowers for the rebels who failed: Rebellion in Patagonia by Osvaldo Bayer [Book Review]
Sons of Night The Sons of Night by Antoine Gimenez and the Giménologues [Book review]
And if you don't just want a chunky thing, there are pamphlets:

Cry Freedom, Cry Seven Stars - Bristol Radical History Group

Cry Freedom, Cry World Heritage Site In 1787 abolitionist Thomas Clarkson researched the slave trade with help from Landlord Thompson while staying at The Seven Stars public house in Bristol. This pamphlet looks at how the histories of the pub and the abolition movement are intertwined, and why...

www.brh.org.uk

which Past Tense also do Past Tense Publications

 

[Kate Sharpley]

And it's not a book but a good long read: two part Past Tense tour of 'Bohopia' A Wander in Bohopia: A Radical History Walk around Bloomsbury

 

[nastyned]

.

 

[nastyned]

Publishing crowdfunder for new book, The Idea, by an urban regular: Just Books Publishing - 'The Idea' | StartSomeGood

Looking forward to reading this one

 

[hitmouse]

Have mentioned it on another thread but not on here, Blood of Spain by Ronald Fraser is an absolute classic of oral history. Just masses and masses of interviews with absolutely everyone involved in the conflict - anarchists, POUMists, Stalinists, liberals, Catalan and Basque separatists, monarchists, Falangists, Catholic traditionalists, and so on.

 

[hitmouse]

Publishing crowdfunder for new book, The Idea, by an urban regular: Just Books Publishing - 'The Idea' | StartSomeGood

Looks like they've got £95 left to go:

Just Books Publishing - 'The Idea' | StartSomeGood

Help Just Books Publishing get Nick Heath's 'The Idea' into print!

startsomegood.com

 

[nastyned]

Looks like they've got £95 left to go:

Just Books Publishing - 'The Idea' | StartSomeGood

Help Just Books Publishing get Nick Heath's 'The Idea' into print!

startsomegood.com

30 hours left and a tenner to go!

 

[JimW]

30 hours left and a tenner to go!

If Malatesta was still alive he could chip that in after half an hour fixing someone's wiring.

 

[imposs1904]

If Malatesta was still alive he could chip that in after half an hour fixing someone's wiring.

mates rates?

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

 

[Pickman's model]

Hobswawm has his uses, but I am told he completely misrepresents anarchists so I'm wary of him.

To be fair many if not most people who aren't anarchists misrepresent anarchists

 

[Serge Forward]

And a lot of people who call themselves anarchists misrepresent anarchists.

 

[Gramsci]

Started reading Selina Todd "The People: the rise and fall of the working class"

Its the working class of UK.

Read first chapters and I'm gripped. She is a very good writer. Mixes the personal with the political.

What she does is warts and all history. It's a history that includes neglected areas like servants. Which was nearly all young women. So its a different take on class.

She uses personal histories so as to give working class people a voice. Rather than what others think of them or what they think they should be.

It's a book about how this disparate class of workers were marginalised and excluded from having a good life or having control over their living conditions and how they resisted it and wanted something better.

Its quite an angry book. She does not romanticise working class life. She says she started out on this when looking at her own family.

The People

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'There was nothing extraordinary about my childhood or background. And yet I looked in vain for any aspect of my family's stor...

www.hachette.co.uk

 

[hitmouse]

30 hours left and a tenner to go!

Mar 28, 2022

We did it!

We did it! We have reached our target. Over the next few days we’ll be gathering up your pledges and finalising everything before going to print! Thank you all from Just Books Publishing. We’ll also be contacting you all soon personally to express our gratitude and to find out where to send your copy of The Idea.

Currently reading the Jane Holgate book Arise!, it's pretty decent on 19th/20th century UK union history.