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Government by Appearances

Louis XIV’s passion for dancing, and its metamorphoses, at the beginnings of a society of the spectacle. Peter Wollen looks at the birth of ballet as a projection of state power, and the bonding of elites that court entertainment bequeathed to modern democracies.

Petrus Dadi Ratu

What lay behind the greatest counter-revolutionary massacre of the 20th century, the extermination of the Indonesian Left in 1965? How did the Suharto dictatorship come to power? The extraordinary testimony of a survivor on the bloody mystery at the source of its tyranny.

Reconsidering Revolutions

Göran Therborn on Noel Parker, Revolutions and History, and Fred Halliday, Revolution and World Politics. Two new contributions to the literature on revolution—where does it stand today?

The Rooster’s Egg

The astonishing feat of a 23-year-old Filipino folklorist who took the newly invented discipline by storm under Spanish rule. What did patriotism mean for an Ilocano before modern nationalism; how many discrepant voices could an overseas enlightenment release?

Sqeamishness and Scholarly Rigour

Timothy Bewes argues for the difficulties of Luisa Passerini's way of looking at a past that has not gone away.

Discontinuity of History and Diaspora of Languages

Luisa Passerini defends her retrieval of inter-war ideas of the unity of European culture and politics, without reference to post-war sequels, as a safeguard of actual discontinuities.

Imperialism and the Rise and Decline of the British Economy, 1688-1989

“Historians seldom consider the metanarratives within which academic articles, monographs, models and analyses must eventually become embedded, if they are to inform public debate in modern societies. Yet, however micro the problems they tackle, their findings can always be situated within some ‘greater story’. Since the Second World . . .” read more

When the Party Commits Suicide

“Finally, in the deluge of the conservative-liberal ‘Black Books’ on Stalinist ‘totalitarianism’, a work which not only meets the highest standards of historical research, but also enables us to grasp the unique social dynamics that culminated in the great purges of the 1930s: J. Arch Getty’s and Oleg . . .” read more

The Grand Hotel Abyss

“A considerable part of the leading German intelligentsia, including Adorno, have taken up residence in the ‘Grand Hotel Abyss. . . a beautiful hotel, equipped with every comfort. . . And the daily contemplation of the abyss, between excellent meals or artistic entertainments, can only heighten the enjoyment . . .” read more

Europa and Utopia: How Cultural History Deals with the Paradox of Modernity

“In the light of Luisa Passerini’s new book on the cultural and political discourse on Europe in Britain in the 1930s, it is tempting to draw a number of parallels between that decade and our own. The inter-war years, Passerini shows, were a period of much speculation and . . .” read more

Medieval England: To Have and Have Not

“Given the generosity of ‘Closure Theory and Medieval England’, Scott Waugh’s review of my English Society in the Later Middle Ages, it may seem churlish to quarrel with some of his specific comments. Many of the criticisms which he makes of my work are extremely valid but I . . .” read more

Colonialism and the Predatory State in the Congo

“At independence, the Congo had only two graduates, and such fabulous riches that the country inevitably became a magnet for rapacious foreign companies and for the Western intelligence services. Kinshasa, as the capital Leopoldville was renamed, swelled with worldly businessmen not averse to secret deals. Once Lumumba was . . .” read more

Grand Narratives of Prehistoric Europe

“Economy and Society in Prehistoric Europe consists of twenty papers written by Andrew Sherratt over the past quarter of a century. Taken together, these articles represent a uniquely coherent and consistent vision of Old World prehistory. They present the Neolithic and the Bronze Age periods in Eurasia . . .” read more

Questioning Eurocentricism: A Reply to Gregor McLennan

“Gregor McLennan says he is replying to my article on ‘Eurocentrism and its Avatars’. It seems to me what he is doing is taking off from my article to criticize ‘post-colonial theorists’, who are also characterized as ‘maximal anti-Eurocentrics’. The justification seems to be that ‘in places Wallerstein . . .” read more

The Question of Eurocentricism: A Comment on Immanuel Wallerstein

“In his critique of Eurocentrism, Immanuel Wallerstein has provided a useful discussion of a major issue for contemporary left politics and critical social science. By contrast with the higher-profile subject of ‘multi-culturalism’, to which it is of course related, the Eurocentrism question has received less considered debate. Wallerstein’s . . .” read more

Reflections on Nationalist Disasters

“Seventy-five years ago there occurred an event, obscure at the time, from whose terrible consequences the world of 2000 ad has not yet completely recovered. The place was Munich, capital of the historic Kingdom of Bavaria and now the second city of the recently formed all-German Reich . . .” read more

The Limits of Social Democratic Admirableness

“Donald Sassoon’s One Hundred Years of Socialism is in physical form as well as in intellectual content very suitable to its actual object of study, Western European social democracy and labourism after World War ii. It is big (943 pages plus index), heavy, attractive—from the cover to . . .” read more

Socialism by Any Other Name? Illusions and Renewal in the History of the Western European Left

“The 1990s are hard times for socialists. A dynamic capitalism is no longer much restrained by labour, or by the constraints imposed by socialism’s presence. Eric Hobsbawm, the most judicious of commentators from inside the socialist tradition, could only end his recent book, Age of Extremes, on a . . .” read more

Eurocentricism and its Avatars: The Dilemmas of Social Science

“Social science has been Eurocentric throughout its institutional history, which means since there have been departments teaching social science within university systems. This is not in the least surprising. Social science is a product of the modern world-system, and Eurocentrism is constitutive of the geoculture of the modern . . .” read more

Secularism and the State: Towards Clarity and Global Comparison

“Debates about the process of secularization have, in recent years, centred on the work of a group of sociologists and historians, mostly British, who have put forth and debated what is known as ‘the secularization thesis’. This correlates modernization with secularization, and generally measures secularization primarily through declining . . .” read more

Assymetrical Trade in the Feudal System and in the Early Transition to Capitalism

“Historical research has analyzed unequal exchange using two fundamental models: the ‘circulationist’ model, espoused by Wallerstein and Braudel, attributes development and under-development to the transfer of value from peripheral to central areas through unequivalent exchange. The endogenous model, by contrast, denies the influence of commerce in capitalist evolution. . . .” read more

The Unfinished Revolution

“On the topic of the Russian Revolution, it might appear that everythingworth saying has already been said. Both critics and defenders of the revolution repeat again and again what was already being said and written in the 1920s. Throughout the Soviet decades leftists repeatedly cited the pronouncements of . . .” read more

Closure Theory and Medieval England

“In the last fifty years, the basic features of the economy and society of medieval England have become more and more distinct as historians, excavating a mass of sources have steadily reconstructed social institutions and charted the changes they underwent in the five centuries after the Norman Conquest. . . .” read more

Reply to Robert Conquest

“I have looked again at Robert Conquest’s writings of the 1960s and 1970s and I remain of the opinion that at that time he claimed figures for excess deaths amounting to at least 17 million in 1930–38. The section in The Great Terror headed ‘Death in the Camps’ . . .” read more

Stalin’s Victims: A Reply to R. W. Davies

“Professor Davies asks me to withdraw estimates of the casualties under Stalinism which I advanced over a quarter of a century ago. I am happy to do so—having done so already on several occasions; but I must also reply to his own re-misstating of those estimates.” read more

Daniel Jonah Goldhagen’s 'Crazy' Thesis: A Critique of Hitler’s Willing Executioners

“In the opinion, not of bad men, but of the best men, no belief which is contrary to truth can be really useful. . .” read more

Marxists Before the Holocaust

“I shall begin here from an astonishing fact. In December 1938, in an appeal to American Jews, Leon Trotsky in a certain manner predicted the impending Jewish catastrophe. Here is what he wrote: ‘It is possible to imagine without difficulty what awaits the Jews at the mere outbreak . . .” read more

History and Illusion

“My comments on François Furet’s book are sceptical. It therefore seems just to note at the outset that there is much in Le passé d’une illusion which I admire, notably the brilliant and beautifully written first chapter on la passion révolutionnaire, and much with which I agree, having . . .” read more

The Tragedy of History

“Modern social and political thought has inherited two fundamental values from the Enlightenment: a belief in human rights or human dignity, and a belief in human progress or human destiny. Marx’s theory of history emphasizes that these fundamental values of modern political consciousness historically have been and still . . .” read more

Reply to Robert Conquest

“1. Regarding Conquest’s pre-perestroika estimates of excess deaths in the 1930s, in The Great Terror Conquest estimated that 3,500,000 people died during collectivization, 3,500,000 in the camps up to 1936, two million in the camps in 1937–38, and that in addition there were one million executions. These . . .” read more

Excess Deaths in the Soviet Union

“I am sure that R.W. Davies, usually a rigorously accurate presenter even of facts which tell against his views, would wish you to correct some of the errors he presents in his article ‘Forced Labour Under Stalin’. I have a reasonable claim to this, for he gives my . . .” read more

Women, Class and Family

“The problems with the study of the family by Europeanists are two-fold. Firstly the terms they use like ‘family’ are often vague and unsatisfactory for analytic purposes—though they may serve as general signposts. Secondly, there is little comparative perspective. Yet this is needed not only to define terms . . .” read more

The Other Mediterranean

“Since the Neolithic agriculturalist revolution, the shores of the Black Sea have been continuously inhabited by linguistically and culturally diverse peoples. In some places ethno-historical continuities are truly staggering, as in the inaccessible valleys of the Caucasus, sheltered from invasions, where natives can make credible—as well as totally . . .” read more

Isaac Deutscher and the Lost History of International Relations

“I would like to express my thanks to the Deutscher Committee for the great honour of this award. The Isaac and Tamara Deutscher memorial prize is a uniquely valuable institution in many ways but the most valuable aspect is surely the legacy of Deutscher himself. For Isaac Deutscher . . .” read more

Dialectics of Modernity: On Critical Theory and the Legacy of Twentieth-Century Marxism

“Students of parliamentary history are familiar with the idea of ‘Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition’. Marxism, as a social-historical phenomenon, has been Her Modern Majesty’s Opposition to modernity. Always critical of and fighting against her predominant regimes, but never questioning the legitimate majesty of modernity and, when needed, explicitly . . .” read more

A Short, Meat-Oriented History of the World. From Eden to the Mattole

“Start with God.” read more

As the Twentieth Century Ages

“Eric Hobsbawm’s The Age of Extremes deserves to repeat the success of its predecessors, The Age of Revolution, The Age of Capital and The Age of Empire. In what is presumably his final volume in this series, Hobsbawm’s vivid style and humanist vision again illuminate an enormous range . . .” read more

The Autobiography of the Twentieth Century

“How will we and our times be remembered by our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren? What will they, the next century’s historians, and the media of their times, make of us, of our ideas, hopes, fears, efforts and illusions—of our victories and defeats? Will these last even matter? Of . . .” read more

Breakwaters of 2000: From Ethnic to Civic Nationalism

“A considerable part of world opinion has grown convinced that the end of history has led to a return of ethnic nationalism. The return is mainly a threat, and a permanent one in the sense that few can see any general cure for the fragmentation or anarchy now . . .” read more

Forced Labour Under Stalin: The Archive Revelations

“The forced-labour system was developed on a mass scale in the early 1930s, and expanded remorselessly until Stalin’s death in 1953. At first the Soviet press gave it a certain amount of publicity—albeit very selective. In 1931–33 the construction of the White Sea canal by prison labour was . . .” read more

Honour and Eternal Glory to the Jacobins!

“I pondered all these things, and how men fight and lose the battle, and the thing that they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it comes turns out not to be what they meant, and other men have to fight for what they . . .” read more

The Prophet of Kelmscott

“‘Grim tatty cities full of spivs, snobs and vandals’: that is a visitor’s verdict on England, a century after William Morris (1834–96). Obviously, he would have been disappointed, having hoped that an ideal society would begin to take shape some time in the 1950s. Obviously, too, people are . . .” read more

The Suffrage Campaign

“Catherine Hall’s article on the circumstances surrounding the 1867 Reform Act (nlr 208) could not, as your editorial notes, be more relevant to political debate today. It is truly a history of the present day. As Hall suggests, the issues of race, class and gender which are . . .” read more

Gender, Experience and Subjectivity: The Tilly-Scott Disagreement

“From the viewpoint of women’s history in France, Louise Tilly’s article appears to arise from a specifically ‘Anglo-American’ debate. But it does raise questions which are very relevant and current. The Anglo-American connection is not just apparent in the references, most of which are taken from works written . . .” read more

Rethinking Imperial Histories: The Reform Act of 1867

“In Birmingham, Britain’s second city, the Art Gallery celebrates the civic heritage of a place which became rich in the nineteenth century. The gallery itself is a beautiful Victorian building. It was a part of the new town centre designed by Joseph Chamberlain, at that time the Liberal . . .” read more

Making Europes

“The double celebration of 1992, Maastricht and Columbus, spawned a double debate, each prolonged way beyond its intrinsic interest by media attention and its acolyte, academic scrutiny: it may be years before any of us will be able to read with enthusiasm another book or article on either . . .” read more

A New Social Interpretation

“In this coherent, sophisticated and intellectually compelling book, Robert Brenner provides an important reformulation of the Marxist interpretation of the English Revolution of the mid seventeenth century. Few scholars will fail to be impressed by his mastery of the vast secondary literature on this subject, as well as . . .” read more

Conflict Probable or Inevitable?

“Tudor and Stuart historians have got back into the habit of writing very big books. Thus in the past two years, Kevin Sharpe’s The Personal Rule of Charles I took a thousand pages to present an apologia for Charles I’s Personal Rule, Eamon Duffy’s The Stripping of the . . .” read more

England’s Transition to Capitalism

“Robert Brenner’s formidable reputation as one of the leading Marxist historians of his generation has rested till now on a series of bold interpretive essays in which he has sought to develop a distinct account of the transition from feudalism to capitalism. Chief among these are two articles, . . .” read more

Barbarism: A User’s Guide

“I have called my lecture ‘Barbarism, A User’s Guide’, not because I wish to give you instructions in how to be barbarians. None of us, unfortunately, need it. Barbarism is not something like ice-dancing, a technique that has to be learned—at least not unless you wish to become . . .” read more