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I have a burning need to know stuff and I love asking awkward questions.

Thursday, December 02, 2021


Just Finished Reading: Primitive Rebels by Eric Hobsbawm (FP: 1959) [231pp]

Covering (largely) pre-industrial, or at least pre-proletariat, rumblings of protest in Europe this is an interesting but often dry academic look at groups who used protest and violence to resist their ‘masters’. The use of ‘primitive’ here is used politically to denote a time before widespread identification with the idea of a Working Class or, in some cases, before the Working Class itself came into existence. The author focuses on rural rather than urban rebels – with one minor exception in Italy – who were more often coalesced around a village identity rather than a class one.

Ranging from social banditry, Mafia (not exactly what you would expect from movies about the 1920’s and 30’s in the US!), Anarchists in Spanish Andalusia, and Italian peasant communists – before moving onto urban mobs – the author covers a lot of unfamiliar (at least to me!) ground to show an often ignored or understudied part of Europe’s rural past. It was, at you might imagine, far from the idyllic pastoral myth that we are so used to.

Although this was a very short work it did take me a few days to work through it. It was, as I’ve mentioned, both rather dry and unfamiliar which didn’t help the narrative flow very well or very fast. Interesting at times but one for the more academically inclined rather than the casual reader.

2 comments:

Stephen said...

Interesting! I personally don't think The Working Class works as an identity people can really rally behind, in part because it's more abstract. It broke down immediately during the Great War when traditional-tribal identities overwhelmed even the more pacifist-leaning labor sorts. Sometimes tribal identities can work within a working-class identity, though -- rednecks being an obvious example.

CyberKitten said...

Class used to work pretty well here until around the late 70's. After that it was more about money with working class youths earning bucket loads of cash in the get-rich-quick 80's.

Coming, as I do, from a Working Class background it was funny to be labelled Middle Class by one of our teachers when a bunch of us went to 6th Form (16-18) on our way to University. Such 'ambition' was considered to be a Middle Class attitude. Much laughing (from us kids) ensued.