What is this?
03/01/2010 20:38
What is radicalhistory.net?
I'm reading for PhD fields in 18th and 19th century British and 19th and 20th century American social/cultural history, focusing on radicalism. It seems absurd to me that PhD students all over the world are reading a lot of the same books for their comprehensive exams, in a vacuum. Even in my own department, none of us know what the others are doing, once we've taken the obligatory couple of seminars. There's not need to be so cagey -- our ideas at this point just aren’t that precious that they need to be kept secret. So I thought I’d “go first” and start posting the titles I'm reading and my reactions to them. My third field is rural history (which I plan to show fits well with these two); that’s documented at ruralhistory.net.
So, what is radicalism? What did people (intellectuals, but also regular people) think was radical, at different times? Why did they become (or oppose) radicals? What did they have in common with radicals in other times and places, and what was unique and local about their radicalism? How, for example, did some of them go on to become libertarians, while others became socialists? Why were some atheists and others devoutly religious? Why were some utopians while others were anarchists?
I saw a definition recently in John Brewer’s Party Ideology and popular politics at the accession of George III. What makes someone a radical, Brewer says, is not a predetermined set of social or political demands (like the points of the Charter), but “any position which, if fulfilled, would undermine or overturn existing political authority.” I think this pretty well captures the idea that radicals are defined in the context of their times, and also by a desire to overturn part (but usually a substantial part) of the contemporary power structure.
So this is the blog part, where I talk about whatever comes to my mind. And here's the link to the Field Reading Lists.
I'm reading for PhD fields in 18th and 19th century British and 19th and 20th century American social/cultural history, focusing on radicalism. It seems absurd to me that PhD students all over the world are reading a lot of the same books for their comprehensive exams, in a vacuum. Even in my own department, none of us know what the others are doing, once we've taken the obligatory couple of seminars. There's not need to be so cagey -- our ideas at this point just aren’t that precious that they need to be kept secret. So I thought I’d “go first” and start posting the titles I'm reading and my reactions to them. My third field is rural history (which I plan to show fits well with these two); that’s documented at ruralhistory.net.
So, what is radicalism? What did people (intellectuals, but also regular people) think was radical, at different times? Why did they become (or oppose) radicals? What did they have in common with radicals in other times and places, and what was unique and local about their radicalism? How, for example, did some of them go on to become libertarians, while others became socialists? Why were some atheists and others devoutly religious? Why were some utopians while others were anarchists?
I saw a definition recently in John Brewer’s Party Ideology and popular politics at the accession of George III. What makes someone a radical, Brewer says, is not a predetermined set of social or political demands (like the points of the Charter), but “any position which, if fulfilled, would undermine or overturn existing political authority.” I think this pretty well captures the idea that radicals are defined in the context of their times, and also by a desire to overturn part (but usually a substantial part) of the contemporary power structure.
So this is the blog part, where I talk about whatever comes to my mind. And here's the link to the Field Reading Lists.
