Pritchett 1 NOTES ON HISTORY FROM BELOW Billie Pritchett GR05655: Historical Theory 26 May 2016 Notes on Jim Sharpe, 1 History from Below, in New Perspectives on Historical Writing, Second Edition, edited by Peter Burke (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001), 26-42. History from below or people's history is an approach to historical events that tries to capture the perspective of marginalized, disenfranchised, oppressed, nonconforming, or middle-class, working class, or poor people instead of from the perspective of national or world leaders or authority figures. Bertolt Brecht, Questions from a Worker who Reads (1935) 2 Who built Thebes of the 7 gates? In the books you will read the names of kings. Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock? And Babylon, many times demolished, Who raised it up so many times? In what houses of gold glittering Lima did its builders live? Where, the evening that the Great Wall of China was finished, did the masons go? Great Rome is full of triumphal arches. Who erected them? Over whom did the Caesars triumph? Had Byzantium, much praised in song, only palaces for its inhabitants? Caesar defeated the Gauls. Did he not even have a cook with him? Philip of Spain wept when his armada went down. Was he the only one to weep? Frederick the 2nd won the 7 Years War. Who else won it? Every page a victory. Who cooked the feast for the victors? Every 10 years a great man. Who paid the bill? So many reports. So many questions. Even in fabled Atlantis, the night that the ocean engulfed it, The drowning still cried out for their slaves. The young Alexander conquered India. Was he alone? 1 Professor James Sharpe has well established interested in the social and cultural history of early modern England, with wider interests in witchcraft, in the history of crime and law enforcement, and in early modern judicial systems. This is a statement of Dr. Sharpe's academic interest from James Sharpe History, The University of York, available at https://www.york.ac.uk/history/staff/profiles/sharpe/. 2 Available online at https://www.marxists.org/subject/art/literature/brecht/.
Pritchett 2 Compared to Traditional History Traditionally, history has been regarded, from Classical times onwards, as an account of the doings of the great. Interest in broader social and economic history developed in the nineteenth century, but the man subject matter of history remained the unfolding of elite politics (p. 26). A Brief Timeline of Seminal Works 3 1935/6 Bertolt Brecht, Questions from a Worker who Reads (poem) 1959 George Rude, The Crowd in the French Revolution (book) (London: Oxford UP). 1966 Edward Thompson, History from Below (article), The Times Literary Supplement 1980 Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present (book) (New York: Harper). 1985 History from Below: Studies in Popular Protest and Popular Ideology in Honour of George Rude (essay collection), edited by Frederick Krantz (Montreal, Quebec: Concordia University). Purpose of the Chapter Objective: To examine the problems and prospects in writing history from below (p. 27). Themes: (1) Introducing the diverse subject matter that the approach history from below has produced. (2) Analyzing evidential, conceptual, and ideological issues related to a history from below. (p. 27) 3 All too brief. Modified from Sharpe, p. 26.
Pritchett 3 People's Histories: Examples of Subject Matter and Sources 4 Published Work Richard Cobb, The People's Armies (1961/1987) Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution, 1789-1848 (1962); The Age of Capital, 1848-1875 (1975); The Age of Empire, 1875-1914 (1987); The Age of Extremes, 1914-1991 (1994) 5 Alan Macfarlane, Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England (1970) Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Montaillou (1975) Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms (1976) Barbara Hanawalt, The Ties that Bound: Peasant Families in Medieval England (1980) Paul Ginsborg, Family Politics: Domestic Life, Devastation, and Survival, 1900-1950 (2014) Subject Matter + Sources People's armies during the French Revolution whose job it was to get food and military equipment to those on the front; using personal records of those involved People's social and economic relationships across these various epochs; Hobsbawm uses the personal records of people's everyday lives in addition to economic and social data of the periods in order to supplement the view from above Fear of witchcraft in village communities in 16 th century England; using anthropological records, especially laws that prohibited the use of witchcraft in those villages A medieval commune in the Pyrenees mountain rage; using inquisition records of heresy conducted by the Bishop of Poitiers of some of the commune members A 16 th century Italian miller named Domenico Scandella accused of religious heresy; sources were also inquisition records that revealed Scandella's belief system at the time Everyday life of peasants in medieval England; using coroner reports which provided extensive information on the deceased Early 20 th century life of families in Turkey, Italy, Spain, Germany, and Russia; using a comparative analysis of the personal records of families within these countries Problems and Prospects (See the following page.) 4 Seriously modified from Sharpe, pp. 30-33. Sharpe's focus is on medieval England and the study of witchcraft, which explains his focus on these kinds of sources. The sources I have added above hardly account for everything that can be done with a history from below approach but give some sense for what can be done. 5 These are works of intellectual history, and given the ambition of the work and synthesis of sources, it is not clear in what sense the works are exactly people's histories, strictly speaking. See the discussion A New Approach or a New Form of History? in these notes.
Pritchett 4 Evidence Conceptualization Ideology Problems [T]he further back historians seeking to reconstruct the experience of the lower orders go, the more restricted the range of sources at their disposal becomes... [D]iaries, memoirs and political manifestos from which the lives and aspirations of the lower orders might be reconstructed are sparse before the late eighteenth century, a few periods (such as the 1640s and 1650s in England) excepted (p. 27). 1. Problem of definition: Where, exactly, is 'below' to be located, and what should be done with history from below once it has been written? (p. 27) 2. Problem of scope: Another limitation... is that of a restriction in period. Readers... might be left with the impression that history from below can only be written for periods from the French Revolution onwards (p. 29). Much of the work done in history from below has been from the perspectives of Marxist and labor historians, which have tended to restrict study of history from below to those episodes and movements in which the masses engaged in overt political activity or in familiar areas of economic development (p. 28). Prospects In the absence of primary texts, people's historians have become resourceful regarding evidence. For example, Chris Harman's A People's History of the World, which begins with the Neolithic period approximately 10,000 years ago, makes use of archaeological evidence and anthropological comparisons to similar agrarian based societies for which there is evidence in order to support the claim that hierarchies developed during this stage of human development. 6 1. Defining those who are 'below' is usually relative to whomever typically has less power in a hierarchical relationship: in male-female relationships, females; in comparing rich to poor (defined according to wealth or income gaps), the poor; with business owners vis-a-vis workers, the workers; etc. 7 2. Given the extended creative use of sources, people's histories do not have to be limited these days to any epoch for which we have traditional primary texts. Although people's histories owe a debt to Marxist and labor ideology (p. 28), and even granting the occasionally narrow focus of people's histories (p. 35), history from below can supplement traditional histories by placing a social event within its full cultural context, so that it can be studied on an analytical rather than merely a descriptive level (pp. 35-36). 6 Chris Harmon, The Neolithic 'Revolution,' A People's History of the World (London: Verso, 2008), Adobe Digital Edition, pp. 27-33. Another example of creative use of sources come from Howard Zinn, Columbus, The Indians, and Human Progress, A People's History of the United States (New York: HarperCollins, 2015), Kindle Edition. The Native Americans did not have a written record of the Spanish conquistadores' enslavement of native peoples, but Catholic priest Bartoleme de las Casas accompanied the conquistadores and recorded the atrocities. Zinn makes use of this record. See Sharpe, p. 30 ff., especially the middle of p. 30 and the bottom of p. 31, for more creative sources. 7 Sharpe writes that 'below' was originally conceived of in terms of class structure or some other cognate form of social stratification: obviously, writing history from the perspective of women, or indeed, of children, would give different insights into what subordination might entail (p. 36). Sharpe seems to think this is problematic, but the seeming confusion might just be a matter of the various power dynamics and hierarchical structures that people are involved in.
Pritchett 5 A New Approach or a New Form of History? [D]oes history from below constitute an approach to history or a distinctive type of history? The point could be argued from either direction. As an approach, history from below arguably fulfils two important functions. The first is to serve as a corrective to top person's history... The second is that, by offering this alternative approach, history from below opens the possibility of a richer synthesis of historical understanding, of a fusion of the history of the everyday experience of the people with the subject matter of more traditional types of history. Conversely, it could be argued that the subject matter of history from below, the problems of its documentation and, possibly, the political orientation of many of its practitioners makes it a distinctive type of history. In a sense, of course, it is difficult to maintain a clearcut division between a type of history and an approach to the discipline in general: economic history, intellectual history, political history, military history, and so on are at their least effective when confined in hermetically sealed boxes (p. 33). Broadening the Audience One of the major objectives of those writing history from below, particularly those working from a socialist or labour history position, was to attempt to... [broaden] their audience... So far their efforts have not been successful, and top person's history still seems to be very much the public taste (pp. 34-35). [W]e must admit, regretfully, that although the concept has been with us for over three decades, history from below has so far had comparatively little impact on mainstream history or on altering the perspectives of mainstream history (p. 38). Discussion Questions 1. As a historian, do you feel particularly obligated to incorporate primary sources that document people's experiences from 'below'? 2. Would any of the work you have produced or plan to produce constitute a history from below approach? 3. Many of the early historical writings from the history from below approach grew out of Marxist and labor movement perspectives. Do you think this counts as a violation of the call to objectivity in historical writing? 4. Some books are explicitly marketed as people's histories, as with Donny Gluckstein's A People's History of the Second World War: Resistance Versus Empire. 8 Still other books are people's histories and do not market themselves as people's histories, as with Paul Ginsborg's Family Politics: Domestic Life, Devastation, and Survival, 1900-1950. 9 Do you think there are any problems with histories branding themselves explicitly as 'people's histories' or historians branding themselves as 'people's historians'? 5. What is your philosophy toward historical writing, and how does history from below fit, if at all? 8 (London: Pluto Press, 2012). 9 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014).