In Search of People’s History

Eric Hobsbawm

  • People’s History and Socialist Theory edited by Raphael Samuel
    Routledge, 417 pp, £10.95, January 1981, ISBN 0 7100 0765 5
  • British Labour History by E.H. Hunt
    Weidenfeld, 428 pp, £18.50, January 1981, ISBN 0 297 77785 8

When the Roman emperor Vitellius was deserted in his last moments by everyone except his cook, the aristocratic historian Tacitus could not bring himself to mention the actual occupation of so undignified a member of society. As Peter Burke points out in a friendly but sceptical contribution to People’s History and Socialist Theory, under such circumstances ‘people’s history’ was a contradiction in terms.

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