As Orwell noted, history is written by the winners. He was talking about war between nation states, though the same could be said about the struggle between classes. Approaching the past from the losers' side, this module uncovers some radical ideas and practices that have often been overlooked in accounts of modern British history. It first goes back to the revolutionary years of the mid-seventeenth century to examine how radicals questioned dominant ideas about democratic rights and property ownership, some even advocating 'communism'. This period also witnessed fundamental questioning of the power imbalance between men and women, in the family and the private sphere as well as in the public. The focus then shifts to another period of rapid economic and social change that accompanied the growth of industrial capitalism in the nineteenth century. At this time, Chartists embraced the cause of democracy, while Owenite socialists reinvented 'communism' in a new context. Once again, radicals also spotlighted issues of power within the family and between genders.
The final part of the module examines the ways in which these earlier oppositional ideas and practices informed working-class culture and working-class institutions in the 20th century. The extent to which the modern labour movement continued but also attenuated radical understandings of democracy, property ownership and gender relations is discussed. The module concludes by analysing how what we might call the working-class alternative faced mounting criticism during the second half of the twentieth century, both from those on the socialist and feminist left who sympathised with its broad aims and from hostile groups who desired to consign it to historical oblivion.
- Module Supervisor: Peter Gurney