Marxist Historiography

[UltraLeftGerry]

I was wondering if anyone knew of any books articles or essays that outline Marxist approaches to historiography and history in general. Basically I'm looking for a handbook of methodology for the aspiring Marxist historian. Since there are many "Marxisms" are there any works that discuss the different methodology used by Leninists vs. council communists etc.?
Thanks a bunch.

[Black Dagger]

I'm not aware of any books on 'marxist historiography', but 'Decolonising Methodologies: Researching and Indigenous people' by Linda Tuhiwai Smith is a great book to read if you plan on doing any research or writing that deals with the history of european colonisation and/or relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in a colonial context, from an historiographical point of view.

There really isn't much in the way of specialised 'marxist' historigraphies, i.e. council communist vs. marxist leninist or whatever, because divisions amongst marxists relate to marxist theory not appraoches to history.

There is a generic 'marxist' approach to history that tends to focus on class struggle and a class-based analysis of events and historical societies. There are a lot more marxist influenced historians than there are strictly marxist ones, the basic premise of the 'social history' genre of history, is history from below, history of oppressed peoples and so forth, which is a 'marxist influenced' historical approach which is fairly popular.

Usually amongst general marxist approaches to history, say an historical study of the development of Latin America states/societies, there are sections on 'women' and stuff that deals with 'race', rarely anything on sexuality, and usually all of these subjects are secondary to the narrative on class. That said, there are 'specialised' authors, those these tend to be marxist influenced (they'll use 'class' a lense in their writing) rather than strictly marxist historians, people who's main focus is on 'women in ...' , but then again writing that deals with queer histories as a form of social history are few and far between.

[chimx]

Peter Tosh has written some general historiography books that dive into marxist historiography, although i would be interested if anyone knew of any marxist historiographies that were more indepth as well.

[Entrails Konfetti]

Really Peter Tosh? Wow!

Chris Harman has written A Peoples History of the World, which is a Marxist perspective of history. Though he considers himself a Trotskyist, so he is biased.

[chimx]

opps, i mean john tosh.

edit add: this looks worth wild (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312127332/qid=1146179414/sr=1-7/ref=sr_1_7/102-0745866-6737761?s=books&v=glance&n=283155). though i haven't read it, just some of the essays that are inside o' it. hobsbawm is mos def a must.

[Black Dagger]

Eh, ' A Peoples History of the World' sounds like it would either have to be extraordinarly HUGE or indeed incredibly superificial. Rather than general 'people's histories', i'd suggest trying to find books that deal with specific places or periods from a social historical point of view, these are bound to be more detailed.

Also, perhaps forget the idea of reading explicitly 'marxist' histories (they tend to be quite narrowly focused), the best 'people's histories' that ive read are not written by marxists, but by people educated or read in theories that have some marxist influence (in that they use class as a lense and some marxist terminology) but are rather more advanced (psycho)sociological theories, people like Frantz Fanon who deal with race and the psychology of colonialism etc. Although Fanon is a bad example because i think he was actually a legit marxist :lol:

[Sir Aunty Christ]

Christopher Hill and E.P. Thompson are worth a look.

[Entrails Konfetti]

Originally posted by Black [email protected] 28 2006, 05:58 AM
Eh, ' A Peoples History of the World' sounds like it would either have to be extraordinarly HUGE or indeed incredibly superificial.
It was a bit of both, but it's a good intro to reading history.
Also, it did atleast present history as a process. :)

[Amusing Scrotum]

Although it's not an "in-depth intellectual study", if you ever see it, I'd recommend Mark Steel's Vive La Revolution....ISBN 0-7432-0806-4.

Steel is a Marxist/comedian, so the book is very enjoyable and witty as well as operating within a Marxist framework....he discusses how technological change X affected stuff and then inserts an amusing anecdote about cooking (or something).

Basically, the book, if you really look at the methods used, lays out the way in which one should approach history though a "Marxist lens" and it also avoids talking in obscure "academic language". It's Marxism for "laymen", if you get what I mean.

Also, for more on what specific fields need to be investigated (economics, class and so on), try The Materialist Conception of History (1891) by Plekhanov (http://marxists.org/archive/plekhanov/1897/history/part1.htm)....it's relatively short, and if I remember correctly, in sections II, III and IV, Plekhanov spells out what should be investigated. And also, what's important to remember, is that these things shouldn't be investigated separately....rather, you should discuss how they affect each other; or in dialectical language, how they interact.

Really though, any half-decent historian, as Black Dagger mentions, will have borrowed elements, at least, from Marxism....the key here, if you can, is to avoid popular historians; they're usually popular cause they talk shit! :lol:

Plus, you may like to try MIA and have a look at some of the stuff in both their History and Subjects sections; you'll probably pick some useful stuff up from some of the pieces in there.

On top of that, if you read some of the most materialist philosophy (rather than material analysis) orientated works of Marx's and Engels (The German Ideology [section 1], Socialism: Utopian and Scientific and so on), then you should get a grounding in basic materialist philosophy which will help you loads when looking at historical questions.


Originally posted by UltraLeftGerry
Basically I'm looking for a handbook of methodology for the aspiring Marxist historian.

To be honest, something like that would be fucking great!

All I can think of here, is maybe some of the introductions to Marxism....Chris Harman&#39;s been brought up here, so maybe you could try How Marxism Works (http://www.comcen.com.au/~marcn/redflag/archive/harman/hmw/index.html) by him; Understanding history is probably as good a chapter as any to read. <_<

Additionally what chimx suggested looks interesting, though I doubt you&#39;ll find that in many places....living near a good library will probably help you.

On top of that, I&#39;ve just started a work called Formations of Modern Social Thought by Ken Morrison....it&#39;s an introduction to Sociological theory and deals with Marx, Durkheim and Weber.

It&#39;s a big book and I&#39;ve only read the introduction so far; but Marx is the first thinker discussed, so when I finish reading that section I&#39;ll post and say whether it could be useful to you....it may well spell out the methodology, though how well I don&#39;t know.

[Black Dagger]

I&#39;d also suggest reading some Michael Parenti, &#39;history as mystery&#39; is a great read and deals with the processes by which history can be constructed or mystified for specific purposes - overall Parenti has a very fun, readable style, like Tariq Ali.

[Invader Zim]

There are literally hundreds of books on marxist historiography, if not thousands.

I recently wrote an essay on the subject for a mudule I am doing on historiography, among the best works I found was: -

Perry, M., Marxism and History, (Basingstoke, 2002).

Try reading the works of famous Marxist historians, Hobsbawm, Hill, Dobbs, Thompson, Hilton, etc.

[RevolverNo9]

I&#39;m trying to compile a resource of history relevent to a Marxist approach, in another thread. Hopefully after exams take the heat off I&#39;ll be able to update it thoroughly.

If you want a standard introduction and overview of Marxist historiography I can recommend a book in a small series published by Routledge dealing with differing approaces. It goes into detail about Marx&#39;s conception of History, later historical theory by Gramsci and the like, the British Marxist Historians (Hill, Thompson and the like) as well as discussing the structuralist / humanist debate and the threat of post-modernism.

Here&#39;s a link (which I now see has a review written by me&#33;) to Marxism and History, Matt Perry:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0...=books&v=glance (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0333922441/sr=1-4/qid=1150117027/ref=sr_1_4/202-7002100-2940615?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=books&v=glance)

This is the only general and easily available guide I have come across.

[Invader Zim]

Haha, I beat you to posting Perry.

[RevolverNo9]

Ooo... so you did&#33; But - you didn&#39;t fetishise it into a commodity&#33;

[Hit The North]

Originally posted by EL [email protected] 27 2006, 05:47 PM
Really Peter Tosh? Wow&#33;

Chris Harman has written A Peoples History of the World, which is a Marxist perspective of history. Though he considers himself a Trotskyist, so he is biased.
Er... biased towards what exactly?