Marxism and Historical Practice (Vol. I): Interpretive Essays on Class Formation and Class Struggle. Volume I (Historical Materialism Book)

The two volumes of Marxism and Historical Practice bring together essays written by one of the major Marxist historians of the last fifty years. The pieces collected in Volume I, Interpretive Essays on Class Formation and Class Struggle, offer a stimulating, empirically grounded survey of North American collective behaviour, popular mobilizations, and social struggles, ranging from a rich discussion of ritualistic protest like the charivari through the rise of the Knights of Labor in the 1880s to campaigns against neoliberal labour reform in British Columbia in the early 1980s. What emerges is Palmer's sustained reflection on long-standing interpretive historical problems of class formation, the dynamics of social change, and how popular social movements arise and relate to law, the state, and existing cultural contexts.--;Volume I. Interpretive essays on class formation and class struggle -- Volume II. Interventions and Appreciations. Bryan D. Palmer is one of Canada’s preeminent historians, and one who has consistently extended the reach of social and labour history in Marxist ways. His publications include award winning monographs on Canadian topics from the Knights of Labor in the 1880s to Canada’s 1960s, as well as wide-ranging excursions into global histories of transgression and marginality. In addition, he has written extensively on theoretical and historiographic realms. This book draws together a selection of Palmer’s writings from the past four decades, organizing them in two volumes that address the history of class formation and class struggle, on the one hand, and theory and historiography on the other. These volumes reveal the richness of Marxism as a historical practice, and the ways in which historical materialism can illuminate the diverse subjects of the past and the concerns of the present The two volumes of Marxism and Historical Practice bring together essays written by one of the major Marxist historians of the last fifty years. The pieces collected in Volume I, Interpretive Essays on Class Formation and Class Struggle, offer a stimulating, empirically grounded survey of North American collective behaviour, popular mobilizations, and social struggles, ranging from a rich discussion of ritualistic protest like the charivari through the rise of the Knights of Labor in the 1880s to campaigns against neoliberal labour reform in British Columbia in the early 1980s. What emerges is Palmer's sustained reflection on long-standing interpretive historical problems of class formation, the dynamics of social change, and how popular social movements arise and relate to law, the state, and existing cultural contexts.-- Provided by Publisher The two volumes of Marxism and Historical Practice bring together a wide range of essays written by one of the major Marxist historians of the last fifty years. Collected in Volume II, Interventions and Appreciations, are articles and reviews capturing the breadth of Palmer's interests as a radical historian. Cultural forms and representational productions are analysed; political readings of historiography and pioneering historical practice provided. Themes as diverse as the analytic and political contributions of Eric Hobsbawm and E.P. Thompson, the conflicted legacies of American Trotskyism, and the representation of class politics in Scorsese's Gangs of New York are covered. The pieces collected in the first volume of Marxism and Historical Practice: Interpretive Essays on Class Formation and Class Struggle, offer a rich, empirically grounded survey of North American social struggles and a sustained reflection on the more general questions of historical transformation. The pieces collected in the second volume of Marxism and Historical Practice: Interventions and Appreciations, capture the range of Palmer's interests as a historian of popular culture attuned to the necessity of class analysis and as a sensitive critic of historical practice