Type of historical narrative
A
people's history
, or
history from below
,
[1]
is a type of
historical narrative
which attempts to account for historical events from the perspective of
common people
rather than leaders. There is an emphasis on
disenfranchised
, the
oppressed
, the poor, the nonconformists, and otherwise marginal groups. The authors typically have a
Marxist
model in mind, as in the approach of the
History Workshop
movement in Britain in the 1960s.
[2]
"History from below" and "people's history"
[
edit
]
Lucien Febvre
first used the phrase
"histoire vue d'en bas et non d'en haut"
(history seen from below and not from above) in 1932 when praising
Albert Mathiez
for seeking to tell the
"histoire des masses et non de vedettes"
(history of the masses and not of starlets).
[3]
It was also used in the title of
A. L. Morton
's 1938 book,
A People's History of England
.
[4]
Yet it was
E. P. Thompson
's essay
History from Below
in
The Times Literary Supplement
(1966) which brought the phrase to the forefront of historiography from the 1970s.
[5]
: 113
[6]
[7]
Thompson did not use the phrase in his TLS piece. History From Below appeared as the title of the Thompson article, put there by an anonymous editor.
[8]
It was popularized among non-historians by
Howard Zinn's
1980 book,
A People's History of the United States
.
[9]
Description
[
edit
]
A people's history is the history as the story of mass movements and of the outsiders. Individuals not included in the past in other type of writing about history are part of history-from-below theory's primary focus, which includes the
disenfranchised
, the
oppressed
, the
poor
, the nonconformists, the
subaltern
and the otherwise forgotten people. This theory also usually focuses on events occurring in the French Revolution, or when an overwhelming wave of smaller events cause certain developments to occur. This approach to writing history is in direct opposition to methods which tend to emphasize single great figures in history, referred to as the
Great Man theory
; it argues that the driving factor of history is the daily life of ordinary people, their
social status
and
profession
. These are the factors that "push and pull" on opinions and allow for trends to develop, as opposed to great people introducing ideas or initiating events.
In his book
A People's History of the United States
,
Howard Zinn
wrote: "The history of any country, presented as the history of a family, conceals fierce conflicts of interest (sometimes exploding, most often repressed) between conquerors and conquered, masters and slaves, capitalists and workers, dominators and dominated in race and walks, and sex. And in such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, as
Albert Camus
suggested, not to be on the side of the executioners."
[10]
Criticism
[
edit
]
Historian
Guy Beiner
wrote that "the Neo-Marxist flag-bearers of history from below have at times resorted to idealized and insufficiently sophisticated notions of 'the people', unduly ascribing to them innate progressive values. In practice, democratic history is by no means egalitarian".
[11]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
E. P. Thompson, "History from Below",
Times Literary Supplement
, 7 April 1966, pp. 279?80.
- ^
Wade Matthews (2013).
The New Left, National Identity, and the Break-up of Britain
. BRILL. pp. 20?21.
ISBN
9789004253070
.
- ^
When the State Trembled 1442660228 Reinhold Kramer, Tom Mitchell - 2010 "It was Lucien Febvre who first used the phrase 'history from below' when in 1932 he observed that Albert Mathiez, a founding member of the Annales tradition, had sought 'histoire des masses et non de vedettes; histoire vue d'en bas en non ..."
- ^
AL Morton
Compendium of Communist Biographies, Graham Stevenson, Accessed Feb 2014
- ^
Black, Jeremy; MacRaild, Donald M. (1 January 2016) [2007].
Studying History
. Macmillan Education UK.
ISBN
978-1-137-47860-3
.
- ^
Thompson, Edward P. (1966), "History from Below'
",
The Times Literary Supplement
- ^
Black and MacRaild wrote that Thompson's 1966 essay, 'History from below', in the
Times Literary Supplement
"was the real starting point, not only of the term, but of attempts to define it, to intellectualise about it, and to give it a coherent agenda...."
- ^
Tom Mitchell, "History From Below," Times Literary Supplement, November 24, 2006, 15
- ^
Howard Zinn
(1980).
A People's History of the United States
. London and New York: Longman.
- ^
chapter: Columbus, The Indians, and Human Progress
- ^
Guy Beiner,
Forgetful Remembrance: Social Forgetting and Vernacular Historiography of a Rebellion in Ulster (Oxford University Press, 2018)
, pp. 9.
Further reading
[
edit
]
- A People's History of England
by
A. L. Morton
(Victor Gollancz: London, 1938)
- Howard Zinn
(1980).
A People's History of the United States
. London and New York: Longman.
- An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States
by
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
(Washington; Beacon Press, 2014)
- A People's History of the United States (in 8 volumes) by
Page Smith
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976?1987)
- A People's History of the Supreme Court
by
Peter Irons
(New York: Viking, 1999)
- A People's History of the World
by
Chris Harman
(London: Bookmarks, 1999)
- A People's History of the Second World War
by
Donny Gluckstein
(Pluto Press, 2012)
- A People's History of World War II
by
Marc Favreau
(New press, 2011)
- The Hundred Years War: A People's History
by
David green
(Yale University Press, 2014)
- A People's History of the American Revolution: How Common People Shaped the Fight for Independence
by
Ray Raphael
(New York: New Press, 2001)
- The Congo: From Leopold to Kabila: A People's History
by
Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja
(London, NY: Zed, 2002)
- A People's History of the Vietnam War
by
Jonathan Neale
(New York: New Press, 2003)
- The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome
by
Michael Parenti
(New York : New Press, 2003)
- A History of the Swedish People, Vol. 1: From Prehistory to the Renaissance
by
Vilhelm Moberg
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005)
- A History of the Swedish People, Vol. 2: From Renaissance to Revolution
by
Vilhelm Moberg
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005)
- A People's History of Science: Miners, Midwives, and "Low Mechaniks"
by
Clifford D. Conner
(New York: Nation, 2005)
- A People's History of the Civil War: Struggles for the Meaning of Freedom
by
David Williams
(New York: New Press, 2005)
- A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891?1924
by
Orlando Figes
(Penguin Books, 1998)
- A People's History of the Mexican Revolution
by
Adolfo Gilly
(New York, NY: New Press, 2005)
- A People's History of the French Revolution
by
Eric Hazan
(Verso, 2014)
- A People's History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story
by
Dianna Butler Bass
(Harper One, 2010)
- Christian Origins: A People's History of Christianity, Vol. 1
by
Richard A. Horsley
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005)
- Late Ancient Christianity: A People's History of Christianity, Vol. 2
by
Virginia Burrus
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005)
- The English Civil War: A People's History
by
Diane Purkiss
(New York: Basic Books, 2006)
- Reformation Christianity: A People's History of Christianity
by
Peter Matheson
and
Denis R. Janz
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007)
- The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World
by
Vijay Prashad
(New York: New Press: W.W. Norton, 2007)
- A History of the Arab Peoples
by
Albert Hourani
(Warner Books, 1992)
- Hearts and Minds: A People's History of Counterinsurgency
by
Hannah Gurman
(New Press, 2013)
- A People's History of the U.S. Military
by
Michael A. Bellesiles
(New Press, 2013)
- A People's History of Poverty in America
by
Stephen Pimpare
(New York: New Press ; London : Turnaround, 2008)
- A People's History of Environmentalism in the United States
by
Chad Montrie
(Bloomsbury Academic, 2011)
- For All the People: Uncovering the Hidden History of Cooperation, Cooperative Movements, and Communalism in America
by
John Curl
(PM Press, 2012)
- Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice
by
Jessica Gordon Nembhard
(Penn State university press, 2014)
- A People's History of Sports in the United States
by
Dave Zirin
(New York; London: New Press, c. 2008)
- A People's Art History of the United States
by
Nicolas Lampert
(New press, 2010)
- Downwind: A People's History of the Nuclear West
by
Sarah Alisabeth Fox
(Bison Books, 2014)
- A People's History of London
by
Lindsey German & John rees
(Verso, 2012)
- The Blood Never Dried: A People's History of the British Empire
by
John Newsinger
(London: Bookmarks, 2009)
- A Renegade History of the United States
by
Thaddeus Russell
(New York: Free Press, 2010)
- A People's History of Scotland
by
Chris Bambery
(Verso, 2014)
- Montaillou: Cathars and Catholics in a French village: 1294?1324
by
Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie
(Penguin Books Ltd, 2013)
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