History after Hobsbawm: Writing the Past for the Twenty-First Century

361 Pages·2018·16.966 MB·English

by  John H. Arnold (editor), Matthew Hilton (editor), Jan Ruger (editor)

HISTORY AFTER HOBSBAWM

History after
Hobsbawm
Writing the Past for the Twenty-First
Century
Edited by
JOHN H. ARNOLD
MATTHEW HILTON
and
JAN RÜGER
1
3
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Acknowledgements
The majority of the chapters in this collection were originally presented at the
conference ‘History after Hobsbawm’ held at Senate House, University of London,
29 April–1 May 2014. The editors would like to express their thanks for the
contribution made by the many other speakers at this event, as well as the extensive
comments from the audience. They acknowledge too the generous support pro-
vided by Birkbeck College, the Institute for Historical Research, and the Past and
Present Society.

Contents
List of Plates ix
List of Maps and Table xi
INTRODUCTION
1. The Challenges of History 3
John H. Arnold, Matthew Hilton, and Jan Rüger
I. NATION AND EMPIRE
2. Gendering Property, Racing Capital 17
Catherine Hall
3. Writing Europe into the History of the British Empire 35
Jan Rüger
4. Indigenous Comparisons 50
Renaud Morieux
5. Hobsbawm and Researching the History of Nationalism 76
John Breuilly
6. Decolonization as Tragedy? 96
Bill Schwarz
II. MATERIAL ECONOMIES
7. Jiangnan Style: Doing Global Economic History in
the Medieval Period 121
Chris Wickham
8. Global History and the Transformation of Early Modern Europe 140
Maxine Berg
9. Industrial History, Working Lives, Nation, and Empire,
Viewed through Some Key Welsh Woollen Objects 160
Pat Hudson
10. Social and Environmental History in the Anthropocene 184
Paul Warde
11. Material Histories of the World: Scales and Dynamics 200
Frank Trentmann
viii Contents
III. PEOPLE AND POLITICS
12. Five Swans over Littleport: Fenland Folklore and Popular
Memory, c.1810–1978 225
Andy Wood
13. Rethinking Gender and Labour History 242
Sonya O. Rose and Sean Brady
14. Postcolonial History as War History in the Twentieth Century 259
Yasmin Khan
15. The People’s History and the Politics of Everyday Life since 1945 272
Jon Lawrence
16. A Visit to the Dead: Genealogy and the Historian 292
Alison Light
CONCLUSION
17. A ‘Slight Angle to the Universe’: Eric Hobsbawm, Politics,
and History 309
Geoff Eley
Index 329
List of Plates
9.1 Edward Lloyd, Ty Brics, the last stocking knitter in the town of Bala, c.1880.
9.2 Important locations and routes relating to the textile industry in Wales.
9.3 Women producing flannel for the United States at Holywell, inspecting the cloth,
1957: Rose Gallagher, Sara Price, Mary Evans, Brenda Wareham (Treffynnon).
9.4 Images of a Welsh wig dating from c.1854.
9.5 The crys fach (short shirt). All-wool flannel, collarless with open underarm gusset
for air circulation, shorter at front for safety.
9.6 Miners’ drawers (draffers/drovers). Blue/black check, all-wool underwear flannel
(gwalanen dronsus), open fly, two buttons, drawstring waist and legs.
9.7 Miners’ drawers (draffers/drovers). Self-coloured, all-wool flannel. Linen waistband,
two buttons, open fly.
9.8 Miners’ drawers (draffers/drovers), to illustrate the gathering on a buttoned cuff
below the knee.
9.9 Three Generations of Welsh Miners (1950). Photo by William Eugene Smith.
9.10 Flannel work shirt. All-wool, self-coloured flannel with stripe. Neck is taped/
reinforced with linen. Sleeves have buttoned cuffs. Side vents, back tail,
buttoned front placket.
9.11 William Jones Chapman (attrib.), 1808–70, David Davies, Cinder Filler,
Hirwaun. Plates 9.11 and 9.12 reproduce two of 17 extant paintings of workers
at Treforest Tinplate Works and at Hirwaun Ironworks, commissioned in
1835–40 by Francis Crawshay, their employer.
9.12 William Jones Chapman (attrib.), 1808–70, Thomas Francis, Quarryman, Forest.
9.13 and 9.14 Labelling on miners’ drawers (Plate 9.7) and flannel shirt
(Plate 9.10), designed to appeal to nationalist sentiment.
9.15 The gŵn: front view. All-wool flannel, red/black stripes. Low neck, 24–6-inch
tailored waist, front chest flaps traditionally held in place with a thorn. Watered
silk cuffs. Worn (as here) over a skirt with linen waistband. An apron would
generally be worn on the top that would hide the waistband.
9.16 The gŵn: back view, opened out to show inserted fabric at tail and two
cloth-covered buttons at waist.
9.17 Market Scene in Wales. Drawn by D. Fabronius; printed by Day & Son, 1850s.
9.18 Two women in traditional dress, knitting. Photo (c.1875).
9.19 Women around the cross at St David’s, Pembrokeshire, said to be a group who
welcomed the duke and duchess of Edinburgh to St David’s in 1882. Many copies
were made depicting an idealization of Welsh national dress, hand-knitting, and
spinning (see https://welshhat.wordpress.com/chronological-survey/1880s-3/1882-2).
9.20 Tourist postcard of three women in Welsh national costume.