In October 1999, Bookmarks published Scotland: Class and Nation, marking a moment of intellectual assertion within the Scottish section of the Socialist Workers Party. Edited by Chris Bambery, the SWP’s longtime national secretary and a founding member of the International Socialist Group, the collection aimed to influence the debate sparked by devolution and the revival of the Scottish Parliament. It examined whether England had historically oppressed Scotland, whether Scottish society was more progressive than the rest of Britain, and what position socialists should take on the national question as independence moved back onto the political stage.

The book’s key feature is Neil Davidson’s comprehensive essay “Scotland’s Bourgeois Revolution,” which spans pages 37 to 133 and effectively captures the volume’s central argument. Davidson argued that Scotland experienced a true bourgeois revolution, leading to the formation of a nation through capitalist growth rather than innate ethnicity. His thesis, further elaborated in Discovering the Scottish Revolution and Origins of Scottish Nationhood, made a significant impact on Marxist historiography. Davidson would later become a leading Marxist historian of Scottish nationalism.

The book’s political framework — along with the SWP’s evolution — uncovers a deeper issue: the crisis of Marxism in Britain around 2000 and the Cliffite tradition’s failure to uphold a clear stance on the national question. The SWP’s shift from cautious unionism in 1999 to strong support for independence in 2014 reflects centrism: a middle-class organisation’s attempt to adapt to changing political dynamics. This essay examines that trajectory, contrasts it with the Trotskyist position of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), and argues that the debate inaugurated by Scotland: Class and Nation ultimately exposes the gulf between Marxist internationalism and the nationalist drift of the British pseudo‑left.

The SWP in 1999: Cautious Unionism in Marxist Dress

The SWP’s stance on class and nation in Scotland rests on three key assumptions. Firstly, they contend that Scotland is not an oppressed nation. Referencing Lenin’s distinction between oppressor and oppressed nations, the authors argue that Scotland does not fall into the oppressed category. Scotland has played a subordinate yet collaborative role in British imperialism, rather than being a colony. Its working class has not been systematically deprived of national rights, and its bourgeoisie has been absorbed into the British ruling elite. This perspective counters the romantic nationalism promoted by Tom Nairn and parts of the Scottish left, which depict Scotland as a diminished or incomplete nation.

Secondly, the book contends that nationalism is not automatically progressive. It claims Scottish nationalism, even in its civic form, serves as a bourgeois ideology. Although it can unite popular discontent, it fails to resolve capitalism’s inherent contradictions. The SNP is characterised as a party representing the Scottish bourgeoisie, aligned with neoliberal policies, and opposed to working-class interests. Thirdly, maintaining class unity across Britain is essential. The SWP argued that the working class in Scotland, England, and Wales share common interests. The book warns that independence could divide this unity, weaken the labour movement, and bolster nationalism on both sides. While socialists should support the right to self-determination, they should not promote independence. The book’s strategic conclusion is clear: independence is not a socialist goal.

Davidson’s essay laid out the historical framework for his political stance. By showing that Scotland experienced a bourgeois revolution, he challenged ideas that Scotland was a “failed nation” or merely under English rule. His approach was thorough, yet in 1999, he did not advocate for independence. Instead, it strengthened the SWP’s scepticism. However, by the 2014 independence referendum, the SWP changed its stance, releasing pamphlets that supported a “Yes” vote. They argued that independence would weaken the British state, damage the US–UK “special relationship,” and create opportunities for radical politics. This change was significant and driven more by political reasons than by theoretical considerations.

The SNP’s civic-nationalist campaign gained broad support from the middle class and some sections of the working class. Meanwhile, the SWP, already dealing with internal issues, changed its position to support this movement instead of maintaining its prior scepticism. The downfall of the SSP and the British left’s crisis removed an important unifying issue for left-leaning workers. To stay relevant, the SWP joined the independence movement.

The SWP’s own degeneration

The 2013 rape allegations scandal severely damaged the organisation’s credibility. Its move towards independence was part of a wider effort to rebrand itself within Scottish politics. Keir McKechnie, the SWP’s Scottish organiser, acknowledged that Scotland is not an oppressed nation, Scottish workers are not more radical than English workers, and independence would establish a capitalist state similar to others. Despite this, he supported independence. This stance was not rooted in Marxism; it was opportunism.

The ICFI and SEP oppose both unionist and Scottish nationalism by advocating a clear Marxist perspective. They argued that the working class has no reason to form new capitalist states, as independence would create two rival bourgeois governments—Scottish and British—both supporting austerity, NATO, and capitalist interests. They consider dividing workers by nationality to be reactionary, stressing that the main goal should be uniting workers throughout Britain and Europe in a collective struggle against capitalism. Their objective isn’t a “socialist Scotland” but the creation of the United Socialist States of Europe, which involves overthrowing capitalism across the continent. In 2014, the SEP called for a “No” vote, not because they supported the British state, but because they opposed nationalism and the formation of a new capitalist state. This stance was the only Trotskyist viewpoint in the debate.

Neil Davidson’s Trajectory: From Marxist Historian to Nationalist Sympathiser

Neil Davidson (1957–2020) holds a unique position in contemporary Scottish Marxist historiography. A rare blend of meticulous archival research, ambitious theory, and active political involvement characterises his contributions. However, his intellectual journey—moving from strict historical materialism to a form of leftist nationalism—reflects the wider confusion experienced by the British Marxist left during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. To understand Davidson is also to grasp the crisis Marxism faced in Scotland.

Davidson gained prominence in the 1980s and 1990s, when Scotland’s industrial sector was collapsing, and the Labour Party was distancing itself from its traditional working-class base. The decline of miners, shipbuilders, and engineers created a void that brought issues of national identity and constitutional reform to the forefront. His early political views were shaped within the International Socialists/SWP framework. This mattered because the SWP offered a platform for Marxist discussion. Still, its core theories—especially its rejection of Trotsky’s critique of Stalinism and its “state capitalist” theory—limited the development of a fully revolutionary outlook.

Despite joining an organisation that valued rigour, Davidson’s intellectual instincts went beyond its standards. He supported historical materialism, comparative analysis, and the classical Marxist concept of uneven development. His early essays demonstrated themes that would define his later work, including resistance to nationalist myths, focus on class formation, and an examination of Scotland’s role within larger British and global capitalism. His significant breakthrough occurred with the publication of *Discovering the Scottish Revolution, 1692–1746* (2003) and *The Origins of Scottish Nationhood* (2000). These books cemented his reputation as one of the most dedicated Marxist historians of Scotland in his generation.

Davidson’s thesis on the bourgeois revolution contended, countering both nationalist romanticism and certain Marxist orthodoxy, that Scotland experienced a genuine bourgeois revolution. It was neither a direct replication of the English model nor a mere integration into a pre-existing British bourgeoisie. Instead, it was a unique process where capitalist social relations transformed Scottish society, leading to the creation of a modern nation. This stance challenged the prominent view associated with Tom Nairn and parts of the SWP, which argued that Scotland never fully completed a bourgeois revolution, resulting in a “stunted” national consciousness. Davidson’s approach was rooted in historical analysis, theoretically ambitious, and politically provocative. It discredited claims that Scotland was an oppressed nation and offered a materialist perspective on the development of Scottish national identity.

Davidson opposed ethnic and cultural essentialism, arguing that nations are not eternal but shaped by capitalist development. He saw Scotland’s nationhood as emerging from the transformation of feudal relations, the rise of commercial agriculture, and integration into imperial trade networks. This perspective aligns with the classical Marxist tradition, yet it also foreshadowed later conflicts between his historical approach and his political beliefs.

The SWP Years: The Limits of Cliffism

Davidson’s most significant period occurred during his time in the SWP. The party provided a platform, audience, and space for debate, but also imposed certain theoretical boundaries. In his 1999 essay in Scotland: Class and Nation, Davidson outlined his core argument: Scotland was not an oppressed nation, Scottish nationalism was not inherently progressive, and independence was not an essential goal for socialists. Instead, he stressed the importance of working-class unity across Britain. While this position was clearly Marxist, the SWP’s theoretical foundation was somewhat fragile.

Davidson’s historical work was meticulous, yet the SWP’s politics grew more opportunistic over time. The party vacillated between revolutionary language and aligning with middle-class movements. Davidson’s political journey eventually mirrored this contradiction. A key turning point in his political development happened in the decade before the 2014 independence referendum. The SWP’s decline, especially after the 2013 rape allegations scandal, fragmented the organisation. Davidson distanced himself from the party, and the intellectual hub in Scotland shifted towards the nationalist-left circles around the Radical Independence Campaign, Bella Caledonia, and parts of the academic left. The 2014 referendum sparked a wave of civic nationalism, engaging many middle-class and some working-class groups. Davidson increasingly believed that independence could weaken the British state, challenge imperial alliances, and create opportunities for radical politics.

This marked a departure from his 1999 stance. Davidson’s later work aimed to reconcile Marxist internationalism with support for independence. He claimed that dismantling the British state could be a step toward socialist change. However, this argument contains a contradiction: if Scotland is not an oppressed nation, and independence leads to a capitalist state, then the main reason for independence shifts from Marxist ideals to geopolitical concerns. This approach diverges from traditional Marxist views on the national question.

The 2015 debate with Sandy McBurney

Davidson’s discussion with Sandy McBurney in Critique (2015) clarified his evolving stance. He argued for independence as a strategic challenge to the British state, while McBurney held a more conventional Marxist scepticism. The exchange highlighted Davidson’s transition from historical materialism to a type of left-wing nationalism—a change influenced by the referendum politics and the ideological environment of the Scottish left.

Conclusion: Davidson’s Legacy and the Crisis of Marxism

Neil Davidson’s intellectual journey reflects the broader crisis facing Marxism in Britain. His early work remains crucial: rigorous, grounded in materialism, and challenging nationalist myths. His thesis on the bourgeois revolution transformed Scottish history. Yet, his later political shift—supporting independence—mirrors the confusion among the British left caused by neoliberalism, deindustrialisation, and the decline of traditional working-class communities. Consequently, Davidson’s legacy is twofold: he is a significant Marxist historian of Scotland whose work will endure, and a political figure whose later views show the pressures facing contemporary leftist thought.

Scotland: Class and Nation serves as a significant historical record. It documents the SWP during a period when it still aimed to present a Marxist perspective on the national question. Davidson’s essay remains an important contribution to Scottish historiography. However, the book also highlights the weaknesses in the SWP’s political stance. Its 1999 stance was not Trotskyist, and its 2014 shift was not Marxist. Both shifts reflect centrist tendencies—wavering between revolutionary rhetoric and accommodating bourgeois nationalism. The core divide in the debate is not merely between the SWP’s two positions, but between various forms of nationalism and the Fourth International’s internationalist approach.

The Scottish working class will not find liberation through independence or through the defence of the British state. Its emancipation lies in the unity of workers across Britain and Europe, in the struggle for socialism on an international scale. The task remains what it has always been: to build a revolutionary leadership rooted in Marxist internationalism, capable of opposing nationalism in all its forms and advancing the perspective of world socialist revolution.

Sources and Bibliography

I. Neil Davidson: Primary Works

• Davidson, Neil. The Origins of Scottish Nationhood. London: Pluto Press, 2000.
• Davidson, Neil. Discovering the Scottish Revolution, 1692–1746. London: Pluto Press, 2003.
• Davidson, Neil. How Revolutionary Were the Bourgeois Revolutions? Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2012.
• Davidson, Neil. “Scotland’s Bourgeois Revolution.” In Scotland: Class and Nation, edited by Chris Bambery. London: Bookmarks, 1999.
• Davidson, Neil. “The Necessity of Multiple Responses: A Reply to McBurney.” Critique: Journal of Socialist Theory 43, no. 3 (2015): 345–372.
• Davidson, Neil. Nation-States: Consciousness and Competition. London: Pluto Press, 2016.
• Davidson, Neil. “Neoliberalism, Nationalism, and the Left.” RS21 (2014).
• Davidson, Neil. “The Scottish Independence Referendum: A Marxist Assessment.” International Socialist Journal (2014).

II. Tom Nairn: Primary Works

• Nairn, Tom. The Break-Up of Britain: Crisis and Neo-Nationalism. London: Verso, 1977; revised edition 1981.
• Nairn, Tom. The Enchanted Glass: Britain and Its Monarchy. London: Radius, 1988.
• Nairn, Tom. “Scotland and Europe.” New Left Review I/160 (1986): 3–25.
• Nairn, Tom. “The Modern Janus.” New Left Review I/94 (1975): 3–29.
• Nairn, Tom. “Ukania Revisited.” New Left Review II/1 (2000): 87–104.
• Nairn, Tom. Faces of Nationalism: Janus Revisited. London: Verso, 1997.
• Nairn, Tom. “The Twilight of the British State.” New Left Review I/101–102 (1976–77).

III. Eric Hobsbawm: Primary Works

• Hobsbawm, Eric. Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990; revised edition 1992.
• Hobsbawm, Eric. The Invention of Tradition. Edited with Terence Ranger. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
• Hobsbawm, Eric. Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914–1991. London: Michael Joseph, 1994.
• Hobsbawm, Eric. “Ethnicity and Nationalism in Europe Today.” Anthropology Today 8, no. 1 (1992): 3–8.
• Hobsbawm, Eric. “Identity Politics and the Left.” New Left Review I/217 (1996): 38–47.
• Hobsbawm, Eric. Fractured Times: Culture and Society in the Twentieth Century. London: Little, Brown, 2013.

IV. Secondary Literature on Davidson

• McBurney, Sandy. “Marxism and the National Question in Scotland: A Critique.” Critique: Journal of Socialist Theory 43, no. 3 (2015): 321–344.
• Smith, David. “Neil Davidson and the Scottish Question.” Scottish Labour History 50 (2015): 45–62.
• McIlroy, John. “Neil Davidson: Marxist Historian.” Critique 48, no. 1 (2020): 1–12.
• McGregor, Alan. “Uneven and Combined Development in Scottish History.” International Socialism 2:100 (2003).

V. Secondary Literature on Nairn

• Anderson, Perry. “The Origins of the Present Crisis.” New Left Review I/23 (1964): 26–53.
• Anderson, Perry. “The Figures of Descent.” London Review of Books 22, no. 7 (2000): 3–12.
• Hearn, Jonathan. Claiming Scotland: National Identity and Liberal Culture. Edinburgh: Polygon, 2000.
• Hroch, Miroslav. Social Preconditions of National Revival in Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
• McCrone, David. Understanding Scotland: The Sociology of a Nation. London: Routledge, 1992.

VI. Secondary Literature on Hobsbawm

• Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1983; revised edition 1991.
• Gellner, Ernest. Nations and Nationalism. Oxford: Blackwell, 1983.
• Breuilly, John. Nationalism and the State. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1982; revised edition 1993.
• Hall, Stuart. “The Question of Cultural Identity.” In Modernity and Its Futures, edited by Hall, Held, and McGrew. Cambridge: Polity, 1992.
• Hroch, Miroslav. “From National Movement to the Fully-Formed Nation.” New Left Review I/198 (1993): 3–20.

VII. Works on Marxism and the National Question

• Lenin, V. I. The Right of Nations to Self-Determination (1914).
• Lenin, V. I. Critical Remarks on the National Question (1913).
• Trotsky, Leon. The History of the Russian Revolution. London: Pluto Press, 1977.
• Trotsky, Leon. “The National Question and the Class Struggle.” The Militant (1931).
• Luxemburg, Rosa. The National Question and Autonomy (1908–09).
• Harman, Chris. The Fire Last Time: 1968 and After. London: Bookmarks, 1988.
• Callinicos, Alex. The Revolutionary Road to Socialism. London: Bookmarks, 1983.

VIII. Works on Scotland, Nationalism, and State Formation

• Devine, T. M. The Scottish Nation: 1700–2000. London: Penguin, 1999.
• Devine, T. M. Independence or Union: Scotland’s Past and Scotland’s Future. London: Penguin, 2016.
• Morton, Graeme. Unionist Nationalism: Governing Urban Scotland, 1830–1860. East Linton: Tuckwell Press, 1999.
• Pittock, Murray. Scottish Nationality. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001.
• Kidd, Colin. Union and Unionisms: Political Thought in Scotland, 1500–2000. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

IX. Works on the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum

• Hassan, Gerry, and James Mitchell, eds. The Scottish Independence Referendum: Politics and the Media. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016.
• Paterson, Lindsay. “The Referendum and the Future of Scottish Politics.” Scottish Affairs 23, no. 4 (2014): 421–431.
• Keating, Michael. The Independence of Scotland: Self-Government and the Shifting Politics of Union. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
• McEwen, Nicola. “Scotland’s Choice: The Referendum and Its Aftermath.” Political Quarterly 85, no. 1 (2014): 50–56.

X. Works on the SWP, British Left, and Pseudo-Left Politics

• Birchall, Ian. The British Trotskyist Movement: A History. London: Haymarket, 2011.
• Callinicos, Alex. Trotskyism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1990.
• Cliff, Tony. State Capitalism in Russia. London: Pluto Press, 1974.
• German, Lindsey. A Question of Class. London: Bookmarks, 1996.
• Sewell, Rob. In the Cause of Labour: A History of British Trade Unionism. London: Wellred, 2010.
• World Socialist Web Site (WSWS). Various articles on the SWP and Scottish independence (2013–2014).

Tom Nairn’s The Break-up of Britain is among the most intellectually ambitious works produced by the New Left Review milieu. It also clearly illustrates the political and theoretical deadlock the British left faced after the war. The book remains compelling not because its predictions were accurate—which they repeatedly were not—but because it captures a deep sense of disorientation: the decline of revolutionary Marxism as a practical force, the move of intellectuals into academia, and the search for new political avenues through nationalism.

This critique does not aim to dismiss Nairn’s work but instead seeks to place it within its historical and political context. It also aims to reveal the theoretical reversals that turned nationalism from a bourgeois ideology into a stand-in for class politics. Nairn’s well-known assertion that nationalism is “Janus-faced — simultaneously progressive… and regressive” is not a groundbreaking insight but a way to avoid deeper engagement. It functions as a conceptual cover for a political setback.

The Nairn–Anderson Thesis and the Myth of the “Incomplete Bourgeois Revolution”

The Nairn–Anderson thesis starts with a straightforward idea: Britain’s bourgeois revolution was “premature and incomplete,” leading to an outdated state setup — monarchy, Lords, and the established Church — that persisted into modern times and hindered capitalist growth. Nairn’s later term, Ukania, illustrated this idea of a refined yet backward state “cloaked in antique attire.” However, satire is not analysis. The British state was not a relic; it was the most powerful agent of capitalist expansion in history. “The monarchy, the House of Lords, and the established Church were not feudal relics holding back capitalist development — they were the specific institutional forms through which British capitalism achieved global dominance.”

The English Revolution of the 1640s and the settlement of 1688 were not merely ‘incomplete” bourgeois revolutions. Instead, they represented the political mechanisms through which a rising bourgeoisie reinforced its authority in partnership with a landowning class already realigned around capitalist farming. Britain’s rise in industry, empire, and global dominance was achieved not despite these institutions but because of them. Nairn’s argument, therefore, misunderstands the nature of the British state. The crisis it faced in the 1960s–70s was not a delayed consequence of 1688, but a result of Britain’s declining global position — a crisis of capitalism, not merely of outdated constitutional traditions.

Nationalism and the New Left’s Theoretical Vacuum

Nairn’s second major assertion — that classical Marxism lacked a comprehensive theory of nationalism — is equally unsubstantiated. Marxism has always viewed nationalism as a historically shaped bourgeois ideology. Lenin’s discussions on the national question, Trotsky’s insights on the Balkans and colonial regions, and even Stalin’s early work under Lenin’s guidance form an extensive theoretical foundation. The Marxist stance is straightforward: nationalism can only be progressive under specific, historically determined circumstances (such as unifying national markets against feudal division or rallying colonial peoples against imperialism). Its natural tendency is to place the working class under the control of “its own” bourgeoisie. Marxists’ role is to reveal nationalism’s class nature and promote workers’ international solidarity. Nairn’s assertion that nationalism is “Janus-faced” — both progressive and regressive — elevates a historically contingent phenomenon to a fundamental characteristic of capitalism.

This isn’t a deepening of Marxism but a step back from it. It permits nationalism to be seen as a valid political tool rather than an obstacle to working-class unity. For the New Left Review circle, nationalism’s appeal was more existential than theoretical. With no revolutionary party in sight, nationalism provided a movement where the working class seemed passive, a sense of identity amid fragmented class consciousness, and drama in a politics that had become overly technical. In this way, nationalism served as a romantic alternative to revolutionary politics.

Nairn’s most significant theoretical contribution is his adoption of bourgeois sociology—such as Gellner and Hechter’s concept of “internal colonialism”—to show that nationalism emerges in response to uneven development. In this framework, peripheral regions rally “the people” through nationalism, which serves as their only form of resistance. Consequently, nationalism becomes the primary political expression of developmental inequality, while class struggle is relegated to a secondary role. This approach reverses the traditional Marxist view of the relationship between base and superstructure: for Marxists, uneven development leads to class contradictions, with nationalism as an ideological response. For Nairn, uneven development creates national contradictions, and national mobilisation replaces class struggle.

This inversion underpins Nairn’s backing of Scottish nationalism. When nationalism is viewed as inherently progressive, its class implications are overlooked. The bourgeois nature of the SNP, its support for NATO, and its austerity policies all fade into the background as part of the broader idea of “national development.”

The Break‑Up Thesis and the Real Nature of Scottish Nationalism

Nairn’s prediction of Britain’s breakup during the 1970s crisis proved premature. The 1979 devolution referendums failed to cause fragmentation, and when devolution eventually happened in 1997–99, it was a top-down, managed reform, contrary to Nairn’s thesis that such change was impossible. The core issue, however, is political: the SNP is not a movement of popular resistance but a bourgeois party advocating austerity, NATO militarism, corporate tax competition, and the transformation of Scotland into a competitive platform for global capitalism.

During the 2014 referendum, the SEP argued that “The SNP’s real aim was to transform Scotland into a low-tax, cheap-labour hub for the benefit of banks and transnational corporations.” Scotland is not an oppressed nation and was not colonised. The Scottish bourgeoisie fully engaged in British imperialism. Scottish workers face oppression as workers, not as Scots. The 1707 Act of Union set the stage for “the first industrial working class in the world,” and since then, workers throughout Britain have fought together in major struggles. Nairn’s “internal colonialism” theory falls apart upon scrutiny. It’s a political fiction meant to make nationalism appear progressive.

The Pseudo‑Left and English Nationalism

English nationalism is the most dangerous culmination of the pseudo-left’s political decline. For years, they idealised Scottish and Welsh nationalism as “progressive,” “anti-imperial,” or “Janus-faced.” However, the logic of nationalism extends beyond Hadrian’s Wall. When class politics give way to territorial grievances, England itself transforms into a “nation” waiting to be rediscovered, reimagined, and ultimately exploited. The pseudo-left didn’t create English nationalism but fostered its development. They started by claiming Britain was an “incomplete nation,” a constitutional relic with outdated institutions blocking progress. They adopted Tom Nairn’s view that nationalism is a structural response to uneven development. They promoted the myth that Scotland and Wales were “internal colonies,” oppressed by an English-dominated state. They encouraged workers to see themselves as Scots, Welsh, or Irish first, rather than as workers. But nationalism isn’t a scalpel; it’s a virus that spreads uncontrollably once unleashed.

The pseudo-lefts now face the monster they contributed to creating: English nationalism as a political force. They cannot counter it because they share its core assumption—that the nation, rather than the working class, is the key political unit. English nationalism is not a revolt of the oppressed but the ideological stance of a bourgeoisie aiming to reshape the state for its own benefit. It claims to offer “sovereignty” while enforcing austerity, “control” while increasing exploitation. It talks about “the people” but serves capital, exemplifying nationalism as a tool to bind workers to their ruling class. The pseudo-lefts are unable to oppose this because they helped develop it — replacing internationalism with localism, class politics with cultural grievances, Marxism with academic radicalism. They embraced regionalism, community politics, and “progressive patriotism,” even flirting with English identity as a form of resistance. In doing so, they legitimised the very categories that English nationalism now exploits.

The disintegration of Britain goes beyond just a constitutional crisis; it reflects the ideological collapse of the left. The pseudo-lefts have split workers along national lines at a time when capitalism calls for their solidarity. They have made nationalism the default mode of dissent, ceding political ground to the bourgeoisie. English nationalism isn’t the solution; it’s a symptom of Britain’s deeper crisis. The pseudo-lefts, having forsaken the working class for nationalist causes, are partly responsible for this rise. The working class has no nation; its future depends on fighting for socialism both across Britain and globally. While pseudo-lefts promote nationalism, Marxism stands for liberation.

The New Left Review Project in Historical Perspective

Nairn’s work is deeply connected to the wider history of the New Left Review (NLR). The NLR represented a form of academic Marxism that emphasised theoretical innovation rather than revolutionary action. Its emphasis on nationalism, Western Marxism, and structuralist sociology indicated a political shift away from the aim of a global socialist revolution. In the postwar era, the working class’s crisis largely stemmed from leadership failures—driven by betrayals from Stalinism, social democracy, and trade union bureaucracy—rather than a collapse of Marxist theory itself. Consequently, the NLR distanced itself from revolutionary parties and focused on developing new theoretical frameworks. Nairn’s emphasis on nationalism illustrates this strategic retreat.

History demonstrates that seeking national self-determination as an ultimate goal has led to conflicts such as the Balkan wars of the 1990s, instances of ethnic cleansing, NATO military interventions, and the rise of impoverished micro-states. Pseudo-left organisations that supported Scottish independence in 2014 later endorsed NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine, aligning with fascist groups under the pretext of “self-determination.” When international working-class solidarity breaks down, nationalism often becomes a stepping stone to imperialism.

Conclusion: Marxism Against Nationalism

Tom Nairn’s The Break-up of Britain remains a significant account of an intellectual crisis. It is sincere, insightful, and highly indicative of underlying issues. However, its theoretical framework fails at a crucial point: nationalism cannot support the working class. It functions as a bourgeois ideology with a dual nature that consistently favours capital. The working class does not belong to any nation. Its liberation depends on defeating capitalism worldwide, not on expanding borders. The crisis of the British state—and any nation-state—can only be addressed through efforts to establish a workers’ government and a united Socialist Europe. Nairn’s book is important and worth reading. Nevertheless, it must be approached critically, as a snapshot of how parts of the left turned away from Marxism toward nationalism. This ideology has historically divided and weakened the working class.

Sources and Bibliography

Primary Works by Tom Nairn

• Nairn, Tom. The Break‑up of Britain: Crisis and Neo‑Nationalism. London: Verso, 1977.
• Nairn, Tom. After Britain: New Labour and the Return of Scotland. London: Granta, 2000.
• Nairn, Tom. “The Modern Janus.” New Left Review 94 (1975).
• Nairn, Tom. “Scotland and Europe.” New Left Review 160 (1986).

The Nairn–Anderson Thesis

• Anderson, Perry. “Origins of the Present Crisis.” New Left Review 23 (1964).
• Anderson, Perry. Arguments Within English Marxism. London: Verso, 1980.
• Anderson, Perry. English Questions. London: Verso, 1992.

Marxist Theory of the National Question

• Marx, Karl & Engels, Friedrich. The Communist Manifesto.
• Lenin, V. I. The Right of Nations to Self‑Determination. 1914.
• Lenin, V. I. Critical Remarks on the National Question. 1913.
• Lenin, V. I. The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self‑Determination. 1916.
• Trotsky, Leon. The Balkan Wars 1912–13.
• Trotsky, Leon. History of the Russian Revolution. (Sections on nationalities).
• Stalin, J. V. Marxism and the National Question. 1913 (written under Lenin’s supervision).

Marxist Critiques of Nationalism and the Pseudo‑Left

• International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). The Historical and International Foundations of the Socialist Equality Party.
• North, David. The Crisis of Capitalist Culture and the Tasks of the Socialist Movement.
• North, David. The Frankfurt School, Postmodernism and the Politics of the Pseudo‑Left.
• Socialist Equality Party (UK). “The Scottish Independence Referendum: A Warning to the Working Class.” World Socialist Web Site, 2014.
• Socialist Equality Party (UK). “The SNP’s Program and the Interests of the Working Class.” WSWS, 2014.

Nationalism, Sociology, and Uneven Development

• Gellner, Ernest. Nations and Nationalism. Oxford: Blackwell, 1983.
• Hechter, Michael. Internal Colonialism: The Celtic Fringe in British National Development. London: Routledge, 1975.
• Hobsbawm, Eric. Nations and Nationalism Since 1780. Cambridge: CUP, 1990.
• Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities. London: Verso, 1983.

British State Formation and Historiography

• Hill, Christopher. The English Revolution 1640.
• Hill, Christopher. The Century of Revolution.
• Kearney, Hugh. The British Isles: A History of Four Nations.
• Colley, Linda. Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837.
• Kidd, Colin. Union and Unionisms: Political Thought in Scotland 1500–2000.

Contemporary Analyses of British Politics and Nationalism

• Kenny, Michael. The Politics of English Nationhood. Oxford: OUP, 2014.
• Aughey, Arthur. The Politics of Englishness. Manchester: MUP, 2007.
• Hassan, Gerry. The Strange Death of Scottish Labour. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016.
• Hassan, Gerry & Ilett, Simon (eds.). The Story of the Scottish Parliament. Edinburgh: EUP, 2019.

General Works on the Pseudo‑Left and Identity Politics

• Callinicos, Alex. The Revenge of History.
• Eagleton, Terry. The Illusions of Postmodernism.
• Žižek, Slavoj. Against the Double Blackmail. (Critical of nationalism and liberal identity politics).
• Löwy, Michael. The Politics of Combined and Uneven Development. (Useful for contextualising Nairn’s misuse of uneven development).

Archival and Online Sources

• World Socialist Web Site (wsws.org) — analyses of nationalism, pseudo‑left politics, and the British state.
• New Left Review — original essays by Nairn, Anderson, and the New Left circle.
• Scottish Government archives — devolution documents and referendum materials.
• UK Parliament archives — constitutional debates, devolution legislation, and historical records.

William Cheatham’s story—a Bolton weaver, army veteran, and Peterloo Massacre victim—significantly enhances our understanding of history. It reintroduces a working-class figure whose experience highlights key societal dynamics of that era. Cheatham was not merely a passive victim of government violence; he was a politically aware worker who travelled to Manchester to advocate for parliamentary reform. He survived a sabre attack by a yeomanry cavalryman over a mile from St Peter’s Field and dedicated years to seeking justice via courts and Parliament. His failure was not random but rooted in structural factors.

Cheatham’s story reflects a common pattern among contemporary radicals and modern Marxist historians: rather than remorse or reform following Peterloo, the British ruling class engaged in repression, intimidation, and history rewriting. The significance of Cheatham’s case lies not in its novelty but in its clarity, exemplifying the capitalist state’s response to working-class activism.

The current depiction of Cheatham’s story — linking it to ongoing debates about democracy, protest rights, and challenging entrenched power — illustrates a liberal viewpoint that obscures the class implications of Peterloo. The aim is not merely to restore Cheatham’s biography but to uncover its deeper significance beyond the ideological stories that have historically tried to soften Peterloo.

Peterloo and the Machinery of Bourgeois Repression

The aftermath of Peterloo is a revealing episode in British history. The ruling class responded with a consistent strategy: Medical denial and coercion. Waterloo veteran John Lees died from his injuries three weeks later, while James Lees, wounded by two sabre cuts, was denied treatment unless he disavowed political meetings. Judicial obstruction was evident when Margaret Goodwin’s civil case against neighbour Thomas Shelmerdine was dismissed without thorough review. Weavers injured in the incident, who sued Hugh Hornby Birley and others, were told their attackers acted “justifiably.” The radical Manchester Observer, which exposed the massacre, faced prosecution and harassment, leading to its destruction. Additionally, Manchester’s official plaque labelled Peterloo a “dispersal” for decades, deliberately omitting any mention of the dead.

Cheatham’s case belongs squarely within this pattern. He identified his attacker, Edward Meagher. He pursued him through the courts. He secured a parliamentary hearing. He gathered witnesses. And he lost. The state closed ranks. The yeomanry were protected. The working-class victim was defeated.

This is not a story about the failure of individual courage or the imperfections of early nineteenth-century justice. It is a demonstration of the structural function of the capitalist state: to defend the interests and agents of the ruling class against the political demands of the working class.

Liberal Heritage and the Sanitisation of Class Struggle

Today’s portrayal of Cheatham’s story—via genealogy sites, BBC heritage media, and the rhetoric of “democracy”—is inherently political. It continues a long tradition of liberal co-optation of Peterloo. The founding of the Manchester Guardian in 1821 exemplifies this trend. Created by cotton manufacturer John Edward Taylor after the Manchester Observer was destroyed, the Guardian aimed to divert working-class democratic fervour into bourgeois reform efforts. Its promise to “warmly advocate the cause of Reform” was quickly seen as a tactic to capture and disarm working-class radicalism. George Condy’s 1836 description of the Guardian as the “foul prostitute and dirty parasite of the worst portion of the mill-owners” was not mere hyperbole; it reflected class analysis.

The 2019 bicentenary commemorations continued this tradition. The Guardian positioned itself as Peterloo’s successor. Manchester City Council unveiled Jeremy Deller’s memorial quietly, concerned about the political consequences of an open memorial. Even Labour’s language — referencing Peterloo as a moral foundation for parliamentary reform — echoed the same liberal framing that Engels critiqued in 1846. The liberal approach to history reinterprets Peterloo as a heritage event instead of a clash between classes. It shifts focus from working-class agency to sentimental stories of “ordinary people.” It replaces discussions of rights with themes of class struggle. Additionally, it depicts the capitalist state as misguided rather than inherently violent. Cheatham’s account, viewed through this lens, becomes a sombre reflection on the slow advancement of democracy rather than a lesson about the futility of justice within bourgeois institutions.

Engels and the Historical Logic of Cheatham’s Defeat

Cheatham’s story notably confirms Engels’s analysis of the era. In The Condition of the Working Class in England and his 1846 letters, Engels argued that the core dynamic of early 19th-century politics was that the “essentially democratic movement of the working classes was more or less made subservient to the liberal movement of the bourgeoisie.”

Engels pointed out that the working class had yet to fully understand the crucial difference between liberalism and democracy — specifically, the distinction between the emancipation of the middle classes and that of the working classes. Cheatham’s extensive efforts over a decade to seek justice through courts, magistrates, and Parliament serve as a condensed example of this broader historical process. He believed that the bourgeois state’s institutions could ensure justice, thinking evidence, testimony, and parliamentary appeals could challenge class power. His defeat was not personal but structural, reflecting the unavoidable outcome of a political system meant to safeguard the interests of the ruling class.

Cheatham’s story is therefore not a tragedy of failed reform. It is a lesson in the necessity of working-class independence from bourgeois institutions.

Memory, Class, and the Struggle Over Peterloo

The dispute over Peterloo’s memory is a battleground of class conflict. The ruling class has consistently tried to tame the event—turning it from a massacre into a mere ‘dispersal,” from a clash of classes into a symbol of democracy, and from a call to action into a heritage tour. In contrast, working-class remembrance has always challenged this distortion. John Wrigley, interviewed fifty years after Peterloo, expressed the true significance of the event: “Never forget, lad! Let it sink in your blood. Stand up and fight for human rights — the rights of poor folk!”

This is not the language of liberal reform; it is the language of class struggle. Cheatham’s story belongs to the political tradition of working-class struggle, which his biography underscores. Reclaiming Cheatham’s biography is valuable, but only if its significance is pulled from liberal narratives and restored to the tradition of working-class political activism.

Conclusion: What Cheatham Teaches Us

Cheatham’s story reveals little about the “enduring questions of democracy’ and instead highlights the persistent reality of class power. It vividly illustrates how the capitalist state reacts when working people seek accountability from its armed forces, showing why the working class cannot depend on courts, magistrates, or Parliament for justice. The story supports Engels’s analysis of the era and uncovers the ideological role of liberal historical narratives. Its significance lies not in sentiment but in political clarity, reminding us that Peterloo was not merely a reform tragedy but a clash between the working class and the capitalist state—an ongoing conflict with vital lessons.

Bibliography and Sources

Primary Sources

• Engels, Friedrich. The Condition of the Working Class in England. Leipzig, 1845. Foundational Marxist analysis of early industrial capitalism; Engels’ discussion of the political subordination of the working class to bourgeois liberalism is directly relevant to Peterloo.
• Engels, Friedrich. The Principles of Communism. 1847. Contains Engels’ reflections on the development of working-class political consciousness.
• Hunt, Henry. The Trial of Henry Hunt and Others for the Peterloo Massacre. London, 1820. Contemporary documentation of the legal aftermath and the state’s efforts to justify repression.
• Manchester Observer (1819–1821). Radical newspaper that exposed the massacre; its destruction by state repression is central to understanding the political climate.
• Parliamentary Papers, House of Commons Debates (Hansard), 1819–1825. Includes petitions, debates, and references to cases brought by Peterloo victims, including Cheatham’s parliamentary appeal.
• Wrigley, John. Interview in The Manchester Guardian, 1869. Contains the famous working-class testimony: “Never forget, lad! Let it sink in your blood…”

Contemporary Radical Accounts

• Carlile, Richard. Account of the Manchester Massacre. London, 1819. Eyewitness testimony and radical analysis of the event.
• Knight, Henry. The Political and Social Condition of Manchester. Manchester, 1820. Radical critique of the magistracy and yeomanry.

Modern Scholarship on Peterloo

• Read, Donald. Peterloo: The Massacre and Its Background. Manchester University Press, 1958. Classic scholarly account; still valuable for its archival depth.
• Poole, Robert. Peterloo: The English Uprising. Oxford University Press, 2019. The most comprehensive modern study; essential for contextualising Cheatham’s experience.
• Poole, Robert. “The Manchester Observer and the Making of Peterloo.” Manchester Region History Review 23 (2012). Detailed analysis of the radical press and state repression.
• Bush, M. L. The Casualties of Peterloo. Carnegie Publishing, 2005. Systematic catalogue of victims; provides context for Cheatham’s injuries and legal struggle.
• Bush, M. L. “The Aftermath of Peterloo.” Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society 103 (2007). Examines the judicial and political consequences of the massacre.
• Thompson, E. P. The Making of the English Working Class. Victor Gollancz, 1963. Essential Marxist historiography; situates Peterloo within the broader formation of working-class consciousness.
• Hammond, J. L. & Hammond, Barbara. The Town Labourer 1760–1832. Longmans, Green & Co., 1917. Classic social history of early industrial workers; includes discussion of political radicalism.

Marxist Analyses and Socialist Scholarship

• Bond, Paul. “200 Years Since the Peterloo Massacre.” World Socialist Web Site, 16 August 2019. Detailed Marxist analysis of the massacre, its aftermath, and the liberal appropriation of its memory.
• North, David. The Russian Revolution and the Unfinished Twentieth Century. Mehring Books, 2014. Provides theoretical context on state violence and bourgeois democracy.
• Trotsky, Leon. History of the Russian Revolution. 1930. Not directly about Peterloo, but foundational for understanding the Marxist theory of the state and class repression.
• Marx, Karl. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. 1852. Essential for understanding how bourgeois institutions function to suppress working-class political agency.

Historiography of the Liberal Press and the Guardian

• Ayerst, David. The Guardian: Biography of a Newspaper. Cornell University Press, 1971. Includes detailed discussion of the paper’s founding in the aftermath of Peterloo.
• Williams, Raymond. Keywords. Oxford University Press, 1976. Useful for analysing the ideological language of “reform,” “democracy,” and “rights.”
• Jones, Aled. “Press, Politics and Society: The Guardian and Liberalism.” Journal of British Studies 32 (1993). Scholarly analysis of the Guardian’s political role in the nineteenth century.

State Violence, Class Repression, and Political Theory

• Hobsbawm, Eric. The Age of Revolution: 1789–1848. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1962. Situates Peterloo within the broader revolutionary and counter-revolutionary dynamics of the period.
• Hobsbawm, Eric. Labouring Men. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1964. Essays on working-class politics and state repression.
• Linebaugh, Peter & Rediker, Marcus. The Many-Headed Hydra. Beacon Press, 2000. Explores the long history of proletarian resistance and state violence.
• Stedman Jones, Gareth. Languages of Class. Cambridge University Press, 1983. Important for understanding how political discourse shapes class consciousness.

Genealogy, Heritage Media, and Liberal Memory Culture

• Samuel, Raphael. Theatres of Memory. Verso, 1994. Foundational critique of heritage culture and liberal historical memory.
• Porter, Bernard. The Absent-Minded Imperialists. Oxford University Press, 2004. Useful for analysing the ideological framing of British history in contemporary media.
• Olusoga, David. Black and British: A Forgotten History. Macmillan, 2016. Representative of the contemporary BBC mode of identity-centred historical narrative.

Archival and Local History Resources

• Greater Manchester Archives and Local Studies holds extensive Peterloo-related material, including casualty lists, magistrates’ papers, and local press.
• National Archives (Kew) HO 42 and HO 44 series contain Home Office correspondence on Peterloo and subsequent prosecutions.
• Bolton Archives Potentially relevant for Cheatham’s background, military service, and local radical networks.

Optional: Further Reading for Marxist Context

• Lukács, Georg. History and Class Consciousness. 1923. Theoretical grounding for understanding how events like Peterloo shape proletarian consciousness.
• Anderson, Perry. Arguments Within English Marxism. Verso, 1980. Useful for situating Thompson, Hobsbawm, and the Marxist historiographical tradition.

Although ‘Maids, Wives, Widows’ is well-researched and detailed, it has a significant flaw that exemplifies a common issue in modern social history. Read’s work offers “a social history without society” — not just a rhetorical critique but an accurate critique of its core problem. This flaw is not due to poor archival research or storytelling- none of which are contained in the book but results from a conceptual approach. The book’s main categories, based on legal marital statuses, are treated as social categories, leading to a descriptive account of women’s daily lives that overlooks the social structures shaping those lives. This critique is expanded here, situating it within Marxist social history, feminist theory, and studies of early modern England. It argues that the methodological choices reflect a broader trend in contemporary social history: favouring thematic descriptions over structural explanations, which diminishes the importance of class as the primary influence on lived experiences.

The Taxonomic Fallacy: Legal Status as Social Category

Maids, Wives, Widows incorrectly treat marital status—such as maid, wife, or widow—as a single, cohesive subject of historical analysis. These labels are legal classifications established by common law and church courts, designed to categorise for legal purposes, rather than capturing the complex lived experiences of women in early modern England. Viewing “wife” solely as a social category results in the taxonomic fallacy: the false assumption that legal definitions perfectly align with social realities.

This fallacy has serious implications. The wife of a yeoman farmer facing enclosure, the wife of a London merchant from Atlantic trade wealth, and the wife of a landless labourer who lost her smallholding generations ago all share the same legal label. However, their social realities differed greatly. Their access to food, labour, property, and political power was determined by their class, not marital status. As E.P. Thompson pointed out, “class is not a thing, but a relationship” (Thompson, 1963). In early modern England, these relationships were rooted in property, labour, and exploitation, not solely in marriage categories. By framing the narrative around legal status, the book neglects the societal structures that shaped whether a wife ate well, poorly, or at all. Moving from legal labels to daily life—like “what wives wore” or “what wives ate”—limits the potential for social explanations.

The Civil War as Methodological Stress Test

The book’s approach to the Civil War era highlights a fundamental methodological weakness. The emergence of women in public and political spheres during the 1640s and 1650s should not be seen as a mere exception to domestic life but as a consequence of a revolutionary crisis. During this period, the usual social controls—the monarchy, the church, and parish hierarchies—were temporarily challenged. Women participated by preaching, petitioning Parliament, and supporting groups like the Levellers and Diggers, not because they inherently held political potential, but because the class struggle intensified and involved previously marginalised groups. As Hill (1972) and Reay (1998) illustrate, the radical movements of the 1640s were driven by grievances from small producers, artisans, and labourers whose economic stability was threatened by the rise of state and oligarchic power.

The Leveller women who petitioned in 1649 did so explicitly as wives of imprisoned radicals, connecting their call for their husbands’ release to the larger democratic goals of the movement. Their political stance cannot be fully explained through a focus on “women’s experience” or “the domestic sphere.” Instead, it must be understood within the context of the revolutionary crisis facing the English state and the class tensions it provoked.

The Missing Element: A Theory of Social Determination

The detailed descriptions of women’s clothing, eating habits, and experiences in the book do not replace the need for a social theory that explains how societal forces shape these facts. Without such a framework, everyday life seems like a collection of isolated details, disconnected from the broader social structures that give them historical context. Important questions are left unaddressed: Why did labouring women have different diets than merchant women? Why did some women earn wages while others managed servants? Why was maternal mortality closely linked to social class? Why did some women participate in political movements while others were confined to household chores?

These questions are not just additional; they are essential for understanding daily life historically. As Joan Scott (1986) pointed out, gender is a meaningful analytical category only when viewed as part of a relational system intertwined with economic and political frameworks. A history that considers gender in isolation, separate from class, fails to account for the development of women’s lives.

The Marxist Tradition: Family, Gender, and the Mode of Production

The Marxist view has consistently argued that family, gender roles, and domestic life are not independent spheres but are shaped by the mode of production and underlying class relations. Engels’ book, “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State” (1884), explicitly states that the monogamous family and women’s legal subjugation emerged alongside private property and class society. Furthermore, the specific ways in which women are oppressed have changed throughout history, corresponding to shifts in the economic foundation.

Early modern England was a society in flux, marked by the rise of agrarian capitalism, expanding Atlantic trade, strengthening state authority, and new types of wage labour. These changes altered family dynamics, gender roles, and domestic life. Viewing “women’s experience” over two centuries as a uniform narrative distinguished only by marital status overlooks the complex forces shaping those experiences.

The critique of Maids, Wives, Widows—that it provides “a social history without society”—extends beyond a single book, representing a wider methodological shift in contemporary historiography. Its dependence on legal categories as social indicators, a focus on descriptive cataloguing, and neglect of structural factors shaping daily life illustrate a tendency Raphael Samuel pinpointed in late social history: replacing thematic description with comprehensive historical explanation.

Samuel’s work, particularly Theatres of Memory, provides a compelling perspective for understanding this shift. He emphasises that history is a “social form of knowledge” and argues that historians should pay attention to the lived experiences of everyday people. This does not mean abandoning structure; rather, Samuel’s early Marxist views—seen in works like The Lost World of Communism, Village Life and Labour, and his essays for New Left Review—are based on the belief that lived experience is influenced by class relations, economic systems, and the mode of production.

Samuel’s insights suggest that ‘Maids, Wives, Widows’ exemplifies a type of social history that has lost touch with social context. It documents women’s lives but fails to explain them; it details daily routines but does not connect them to the power, exploitation, and class structures that influence these routines. This highlights the shortcomings of a historiography that has forgotten its Marxist roots.

Raphael Samuel and the Problem of Social Description

Samuel’s work is often misunderstood as merely celebrating the fragmentary, anecdotal, and everyday aspects of life. His interest in memory, folklore, and popular traditions has led some historians to view him as a champion of descriptive social history. However, this is a significant misinterpretation. Samuel’s detailed observations were always rooted in a structural analysis of class, labour, and social relations. In “Village Life and Labour,” he emphasised that “the texture of daily life is inseparable from the organisation of labour” (Samuel, 1975). His thorough descriptions of rural customs, domestic routines, and communal activities were never just for their own sake; they offered insights into the social relations of production that shaped those customs. The “everyday” was not simply a thematic focus but a space where class relations were experienced, challenged, and maintained.

This is precisely what is missing from Maids, Wives, Widows. The book offers a wealth of detail—what women wore, what they ate, how they died—but it lacks the structural analysis that would make those details historically intelligible. It treats daily life as an autonomous sphere, detached from the economic and political forces that shaped it. In doing so, it reproduces what Samuel warned against: a social history that mistakes description for explanation.

The Taxonomic Fallacy and the Erasure of Class

Samuel’s Marxist beliefs were rooted in the idea that class is a relationship, not just a category. Writing social history without addressing class is like ignoring society itself. Maids, Wives, Widows makes this mistake by viewing marital status—maid, wife, widow—as a single object of study. These categories are legal constructs created by the common law and church courts, reflecting the state’s classification needs rather than the actual experiences of women in early modern England. Samuel would have recognised this immediately. In his essay “Class and Community,” he argued that legal and administrative labels often obscure the true social relations that influence experiences (Samuel, 1969). Viewing “wife” as a single social category ignores important distinctions such as property, labour, exploitation, and access to resources.

The wives of a yeoman farmer facing enclosure, a London merchant benefiting from Atlantic trade, and a landless labourer all shared the same legal label. However, they lived in vastly different worlds of need and opportunity. Their daily experiences cannot be fully grasped solely by their marital status but must be understood through their class.

The Civil War: A Test Case for Marxist Method

Samuel’s analysis of popular politics during the English Revolution highlighted the importance of class struggle in shaping political actions. In “The Lost World of Communism” and his essays on the Levellers, he suggested that revolutionary periods expose the fundamental societal structures by disrupting them. The rise of women participating publicly in the 1640s and 1650s was not merely a vibrant episode of “female agency.” Instead, it resulted from a revolutionary crisis where the monarchy, church, and parish authorities were temporarily set aside. Women preached, petitioned, and organised not because early modern womanhood inherently included political elements, but because the intensifying class struggle drew new social layers into political engagement.

The Leveller women who petitioned in 1649 did so explicitly as the wives of imprisoned radicals, linking their demands to the broader democratic movement. Samuel would argue that their political actions cannot be understood through a framework based solely on “women’s experience.” Instead, it requires one centred on the dynamics of revolutionary crisis and the class forces it unleashed. The categories “Maids, Wives, Widows” are insufficient because their method cannot capture this. A history focused on legal classifications and domestic routines can only describe political action, not explain it.

Marxist Historiography and the Question of Social Determination

Samuel’s early Marxist approach was based on the belief that the mode of production influences daily life. This was not an economic reduction but a dialectical view of how social relations shape experience. Following Engels, who in The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State argued that property relations and class structure historically determine family and gender roles, Samuel emphasised these connections. During early modern England, key changes such as agrarian capitalism, Atlantic trade, state development, and the rise of wage labour significantly altered family, gender, and domestic relations. Viewing “women’s experience” over two centuries as a single continuum, merely differentiated by marital status, overlooks the powerful forces shaping those experiences. Samuel’s method—detailed description grounded in structural analysis—corrects this perspective. Maids, Wives, Widows provides vivid descriptions without the structural framework.

Antiquarianism vs Social History: Samuel’s Warning

Samuel consistently cautioned against the trend towards antiquarianism in social history, which involves gathering facts, anecdotes, and curiosities without connecting them to broader social forces. Antiquarianism is about cataloguing, while social history seeks to explain. “Maids, Wives, Widows” serves as a catalogue, offering valuable primary-source material but lacking a theoretical framework to give those materials deeper meaning. It describes how women spent their days but does not explore who influenced or controlled that behaviour—essentially, it overlooks questions of power, exploitation, and class. These are the questions that differentiate social history from mere cataloguing. Samuel recognised this distinction, but modern social history has since forgotten it.

Conclusion

Integrating Raphael Samuel’s insights with a Marxist critique of Maids, Wives, Widows reveals a broader historiographical problem: the retreat from social determination, the erasure of class, and the substitution of descriptive catalogue for historical explanation. Samuel’s work offers both a model and a warning. His descriptive richness was always anchored in structural analysis. His attention to lived experience was always grounded in class relations. His Marxism was not a theoretical overlay but the foundation of his method.

Maids, Wives, Widows is not just a critique of a single book but highlights a shift in modern social history methodologies. The errors such as the taxonomic fallacy, ignoring class, lack of social context, and reliance on mere description are symptoms of a wider historiographical trend. A social history that ignores society itself is incomplete; it just catalogues facts without interpretation. Reclaiming social history’s explanatory power requires returning to the Marxist understanding that daily life is influenced primarily by the mode of production and class relations, not just legal or thematic categories. Only through this perspective can the experiences of early modern women—and all historical figures—be fully understood in their historical complexity.

Apology Statement 

I want to offer a sincere apology to Pen and Sword Publishers, and especially to Dr Sara Read, for the long delay in producing this review. The book has been in my hands far longer than I intended, and I regret not giving it the timely attention it deserved. I am particularly grateful to Sara Read for taking the time to send a personal note wishing me happy reading; her courtesy makes my delay all the more embarrassing. I will do my best to prevent this from happening again.

Sources and Bibliography

I. Marxist Historiography & Theory

• Engels, Friedrich. The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. Classic Marxist analysis linking the emergence of the monogamous family to private property and class society. Essential for grounding gender relations in the mode of production.
• Marx, Karl. Capital, Vol. I. Foundational for understanding class relations, exploitation, and the economic structures shaping daily life.
• Marx, Karl. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. A key text on how political crises reveal underlying class structures—useful for interpreting the English Civil War.
• Thompson, E.P. The Making of the English Working Class. London: Gollancz, 1963. Seminal work demonstrating class as a historical relationship rather than a static category.
• Thompson, E.P. “The Moral Economy of the English Crowd.” Past & Present 50 (1971): 76–136. Shows how popular economic structures and collective expectations shape action.
• Hobsbawm, Eric. Labouring Men: Studies in the History of Labour. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1964. Marxist social history with emphasis on class formation and labour relations.

II. Raphael Samuel & the History Workshop Tradition

• Samuel, Raphael. Village Life and Labour. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975. Demonstrates Samuel’s method: rich description anchored in structural analysis of labour and class.
• Samuel, Raphael. Theatres of Memory. London: Verso, 1994. Often misread as anti-theoretical; in fact, a meditation on how lived experience intersects with social structure.
• Samuel, Raphael. “Class and Community.” New Left Review 1/45 (1967). Crucial for understanding Samuel’s critique of administrative categories and his insistence on class as lived relationship.
• Samuel, Raphael. The Lost World of Communism. London: Verso, 1986. Shows Samuel’s continued commitment to Marxist analysis even in his later work.
• Joyce, Patrick. “The End of Social History?” Social History 20, no. 1 (1995): 73–91. A key text for situating Samuel within debates about the fragmentation of social history.
• Rose, Sonya. “Cultural Analysis and Moral Discourses: The Legacy of Raphael Samuel.” History Workshop Journal 62 (2006): 1–15. Explores Samuel’s influence and the tension between cultural history and Marxist social history.

III. Women, Gender, and Early Modern England

• Mendelson, Sara & Crawford, Patricia. Women in Early Modern England, 1550–1720. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998. The most comprehensive social history of early modern women; essential for contextual detail.
• Sharpe, J.A. Early Modern England: A Social History 1550–1760. London: Arnold, 1987. Provides structural context for gender, household, and labour.
• Wiesner-Hanks, Merry. Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Useful for comparative context and theoretical framing.
• Scott, Joan. “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis.” American Historical Review 91, no. 5 (1986): 1053–1075. Foundational for understanding gender as a relational and structural category, not a descriptive one.
• Foyster, Elizabeth. Manhood in Early Modern England. London: Routledge, 1999. Helps situate gender relations within broader social structures.

IV. The English Revolution, Radical Movements, and Women’s Political Action

• Hill, Christopher. The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution. London: Penguin, 1972. Essential Marxist interpretation of the Civil War and radical movements.
• Hill, Christopher. The English Revolution 1640. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1940. Classic Marxist framing of the Civil War as a bourgeois revolution.
• Underdown, David. Revel, Riot and Rebellion: Popular Politics and Culture in England 1603–1660. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985. Shows how popular politics intersected with class and gender.
• Reay, Barry. Popular Cultures in England, 1550–1750. London: Routledge, 1998. Useful for understanding plebeian culture and political mobilisation.
• Stoyle, Mark. Soldiers and Strangers: An Ethnic History of the English Civil War. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005. Provides structural context for the breakdown of social order during the Civil War.
• Purkiss, Diane. The English Civil War: A People’s History. London: HarperCollins, 2006. Includes women’s voices but can be contrasted with Marxist interpretations.
• The Leveller Women’s Petition (May 1649). Primary source demonstrating women’s political action grounded in class struggle and movement solidarity.

V. Social Structure, Class, and Daily Life in Early Modern England

• Wrightson, Keith. Earthly Necessities: Economic Lives in Early Modern Britain. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000. A structural account of economic life—excellent for grounding class analysis.
• Wrightson, Keith & Levine, David. Poverty and Piety in an English Village: Terling, 1525–1700. New York: Academic Press, 1979. A model of microhistory with structural analysis.
• Laslett, Peter. The World We Have Lost. London: Methuen, 1965. Classic on household structure; useful but must be read critically from a Marxist perspective.
• Amussen, Susan. An Ordered Society: Gender and Class in Early Modern England. Oxford: Blackwell, 1988. One of the few works explicitly linking gender and class.

VI. Methodology, Social Determination, and Historiographical Debate

• Burke, Peter. What is Cultural History? Cambridge: Polity, 2004. Useful for situating the drift away from structural analysis.
• Joyce, Patrick. Democratic Subjects: The Self and the Social in Nineteenth-Century England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Illustrates the shift toward culturalism that Samuel resisted.
• Callinicos, Alex. Making History: Agency, Structure, and Change in Social Theory. Leiden: Brill, 2004. A rigorous Marxist defence of structural explanation.

VII. Primary Sources (Early Modern England)

• The Records of the Old Bailey (online). For women’s labour, crime, and social position.
• Parish Registers (various counties). For demographic and household reconstruction.
• State Papers Domestic (SP 16–29). For petitions, proclamations, and administrative categories.
• Leveller and Digger pamphlets (1647–1651).

Eric Hobsbawm has historically held a contradictory position in modern history writing: a Marxist who became the most popular historian of capitalism, a lifelong Communist gaining mainstream respectability, and a scholar whose broad analyses of the long nineteenth century were celebrated. At the same time, his political views remained largely unexplored. Fourteen years after his death, this paradox persists. Emile Chabal’s The Age of Hobsbawm, the second comprehensive biography after Richard Evans’s 2019 work, is well-informed, thoroughly researched, but ultimately either unable or unwilling to address the core political issue in Hobsbawm’s life.

An intellectual biography that circles its subject

Chabal aims to craft an intellectual biography rather than a traditional chronological life story, focusing on the ideas, institutions, journals, and networks that influenced Hobsbawm’s worldview. In this focus, the book excels. It highlights Hobsbawm’s international connections—his correspondence with Braudel, his impact on Latin American economists, and his reputation in India and Chile. The author illustrates how Hobsbawm’s intellectual development was deeply linked to the transnational Communist environment of the 1930s and 1940s, and how his later significance was rooted in a cosmopolitan network that extended well beyond the British academic realm.

However, this strength also limits the book. Chabal emphasises intellectual formation but avoids addressing its accountability. The political commitments that shaped Hobsbawm’s life are seen as context rather than issues or contradictions. Consequently, the book offers a detailed portrayal of Hobsbawm’s ideas but largely leaves his political choices unexplored. Eric Hobsbawm’s reputation as the “most widely read Marxist historian of the twentieth century” hinges on a contradiction that not only defines his work but also the course of academic Marxism in Britain. He was a revolutionary historian who refused to challenge the actual revolution of his era; a Marxist who spent his life accommodating the forces that dismantled Marxism; a chronicler of class struggle who ultimately supported New Labour, which ended the last traces of the labour movement. The establishment’s veneration of Hobsbawm is deliberate, indicating how much his Marxism had been weakened.

The Stalinist Imprint: A Political Formation in the Service of Counterrevolution

Hobsbawm’s political formation was shaped more by the bureaucratic structure that suppressed Lenin and Trotsky’s legacy than by their revolutionary ideas. He joined the Communist movement in Berlin during the Third Period, a time when the Stalin-controlled KPD labelled Social Democrats as “social fascists” and facilitated Hitler’s rise, effectively aligning with a counterfeit Marxism. This influence persisted throughout his life. He remained committed to the Communist Party of Great Britain until 1991, enduring events like the Moscow Trials, the Hitler-Stalin Pact, the suppression of the Hungarian Revolution, and the invasion of Czechoslovakia. His loyalty was not due to ignorance but a conscious allegiance to an organisation whose crimes he later acknowledged or suspected.

For a historian whose reputation rested on fearless engagement with evidence, this silence was not merely political cowardice. It was a betrayal of the very principles of historical materialism.

The CP Historians Group: Achievement Built on Avoidance

The group of Communist Party historians—Christopher Hill, E.P. Thompson, Rodney Hilton, Dona Torr, and Hobsbawm—revolutionised English historiography by emphasising class relations as central to history and creating works of lasting significance. However, their success was marred by a significant omission: they deliberately avoided the twentieth century, especially the Russian Revolution. This was not a mere oversight but stemmed from strict Party discipline, which prohibited honest analysis of Soviet history—an order Hobsbawm adhered to. He authored comprehensive histories of capitalism’s development but steadfastly avoided addressing the socialist revolution that shaped the modern era. This silence remains the most defining aspect of his historiographical legacy.

The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 fractured the CP Historians Group, with Thompson, Hill, and others distancing themselves from Stalinism. In contrast, Hobsbawm did not. His later claim that remaining in the Party was only a “biographical question” dismisses the event as insignificant, but it was a political choice with serious consequences. By staying, Hobsbawm accepted the suppression of revolutionary truth as the cost of remaining in the Party. Thompson and Hill gained renewed intellectual energy after 1956, whereas Hobsbawm developed a stronger dedication to the bureaucratic worldview that influenced him.

Hobsbawm’s approach to history—marked by its wide scope and synthesis—was influenced by his political commitments. His works emphasise long-term social and economic patterns rather than individual political actions, focusing on societal structures instead of revolutionary choices. This is intentional, reflecting Stalinism’s ideology of structure devoid of agency, emphasising continuity over change, and viewing history as apolitical. Hobsbawm’s methodology and political views mutually reinforced each other. Consequently, his Marxism lost its revolutionary essence.

Eurocommunism and New Labour: The Final Capitulation

In the 1970s and 1980s, Hobsbawm shifted clearly to the right. His support for Eurocommunism and the Marxism Today group signalled a move away from traditional class politics. His 1978 essay, “The Forward March of Labour Halted,” claimed that the working class was no longer the main force for social change—an idea that aligned closely with bourgeois sociology. This essay became a key reference for New Labour, and Tony Blair’s team openly recognised its impact. Hobsbawm even took pride in being called “the Marxist who inspired Blair.”

Emile Chabal’s The Age of Hobsbawm sheds light on this capitulation. Chabal explains that Hobsbawm was not just a historian of revolutions but a key figure in an era where Marxism shifted towards cultural critique, academic sociology, and establishment-oriented analysis. His insight is powerful: Hobsbawm was a “revolutionary historian” who experienced revolutions he could not endorse and wrote about ones he could not participate in. His Marxism was global, structural, and analytical, yet never political. He documented capitalism’s growth while avoiding addressing socialism’s crisis. This is the reason the establishment supported him—he posed no challenge to their power.

The Unresolved Legacy: A Marxism Without Revolution

Hobsbawm’s historical work, especially on the long nineteenth century, remains highly influential. Yet, his political journey reveals the shortcomings of a Marxism detached from revolutionary action. Although he dedicated his career to studying revolutions, he avoided engaging with the revolution that truly mattered. Ultimately, he became a respected figure within the very political establishment Marxism sought to overthrow. His legacy is not only contradictory but also reflects the broader trend of twentieth-century academic Marxism—rich in analysis but lacking political vitality.

Chabal thoughtfully acknowledges that Hobsbawm’s Stalinist period is not entirely sanitised. He points out that before 1956, Hobsbawm saw Marxism as a comprehensive ideology and regarded the Soviet Union as its sacred heart. This highlights the almost religious loyalty he held. Additionally, Chabal revisits an episode often overlooked by more favourable accounts: Hobsbawm’s early-1950s review of Jozsef Révai’s pamphlet criticising György Lukács for lacking ideological purity. This was more than just literary critique; it was a form of policing orthodoxy during a time when such accusations had serious consequences.

Chabal stops short of applying the full extent of his critique. The instinct that once pushed the young Hobsbawm to uphold Kremlin cultural policies persisted throughout his career, though in a milder form. His 2007 defence of the Spanish Communist Party’s actions during the Civil War—criticised by Marxists as merely recycling “old Kremlin orthodoxies” and contradicting archival evidence—was not unusual. Instead, it reflected a consistent mindset rooted in the Comintern era that he never fully shed. While Chabal observes these continuities, he does not fully confront or analyse them.

Chabal presents his book as an “ethical act,” especially as the historical field feels under attack. This defensive stance reveals a bias: he admires Hobsbawm’s skills as a communicator but is more lenient towards his Communist past. The political beliefs that influenced Hobsbawm are seen as mere background details rather than crucial to understanding him. The main question—why Hobsbawm stayed in the Communist Party until 1991, despite later condemning Stalinism’s crimes—gets some context but no real analysis. Chabal echoes Hobsbawm’s late statement that this was “a one-off biographical question,” not a political issue. An honest intellectual biography should have challenged this avoidance. Instead, Chabal notes it without critique, reflecting a field hesitant to face its own contradictions.

This does not undermine the book’s valuable insights. Chabal’s detailed analysis of Hobsbawm’s global network offers clear illumination, and his careful interpretation of key texts is more focused than many posthumous reviews. However, like Evans’s earlier work, the book ends with a similar stance: admiration for the historian, discomfort with the Communist, and a lack of serious inquiry into why a scholar so aware of the material forces shaping the nineteenth century seemed unable or unwilling to address the twentieth honestly.

The absence of any reckoning, even fourteen years after Hobsbawm’s death and across two major biographies, is noteworthy. It shows that the historical field is still hesitant to confront the political ties of one of its most renowned figures, preferring to see those ties as quirks rather than fundamental issues. Chabal’s book, despite its merits, ultimately sustains this hesitance. The Age of Hobsbawm offers a meaningful intellectual biography. However, it does not fulfil the political scrutiny Hobsbawm’s life warrants. Until such scrutiny occurs, the core paradox of his legacy will persist, and the profession’s own avoidance of these questions will remain unexamined.

Sources and Bibliography

Primary Works by Eric Hobsbawm

• Hobsbawm, Eric. The Age of Revolution: 1789–1848. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1962.
• ——. The Age of Capital: 1848–1875. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1975.
• ——. The Age of Empire: 1875–1914. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1987.
• ——. The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914–1991. London: Michael Joseph, 1994.
• ——. Interesting Times: A Twentieth‑Century Life. London: Allen Lane, 2002.
• ——. “The Spanish Background.” The Guardian, 12 January 2007.
• ——. Labouring Men: Studies in the History of Labour. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1964.
• ——. Primitive Rebels. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1959.
• ——. Bandits. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1969.

Primary Communist and Comintern‑Era Material

• Révai, József. The Tasks of Hungarian Literature. Budapest: Szikra, 1951. (English edition with introduction by Eric Hobsbawm.)
• Lukács, György. The Meaning of Contemporary Realism. London: Merlin Press, 1963.
• Lukács, György. Record of a Life. London: Verso, 1983.
• The Communist International: Documents, 1919–1943. Various volumes.

Biographies and Studies of Hobsbawm

• Chabal, Emile. The Age of Hobsbawm: The Life of a Revolutionary Historian. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2024.
• Evans, Richard J. Eric Hobsbawm: A Life in History. London: Little, Brown, 2019.
• Anderson, Perry. “The Ends of History.” New Left Review 193 (1992): 1–20.
• Thompson, E.P. “The Poverty of Theory.” In The Poverty of Theory and Other Essays. London: Merlin Press, 1978.
• Callinicos, Alex. “Hobsbawm’s Century.” International Socialism 100 (2003): 155–166.
• Birchall, Ian. “Hobsbawm and the Spanish Revolution.” International Socialism 114 (2007).

Marxist Critiques of Stalinism and the CPGB

• Deutscher, Isaac. Stalin: A Political Biography. London: Oxford University Press, 1949.
• ——. The Prophet Outcast: Trotsky, 1929–1940. London: Oxford University Press, 1963.
• Broué, Pierre. The German Revolution, 1917–1923. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2006.
• Harman, Chris. The Fire Last Time: 1968 and After. London: Bookmarks, 1988.
• Cliff, Tony. State Capitalism in Russia. London: Pluto Press, 1974.
• Rees, John. The Algebra of Revolution: The Dialectic and the Classical Marxist Tradition. London: Routledge, 1998.
• Birchall, Ian. The Spectre of Babeuf. London: Pluto Press, 1997.

Historiography and Theory

• Braudel, Fernand. Civilisation and Capitalism, 15th–18th Century. 3 vols. New York: Harper & Row, 1981–84.
• Carr, E.H. What Is History? London: Penguin, 1961.
• Thompson, E.P. The Making of the English Working Class. London: Victor Gollancz, 1963.
• Anderson, Perry. Considerations on Western Marxism. London: Verso, 1976.
• Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities. London: Verso, 1983.
• Scott, James C. Seeing Like a State. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998.

Studies of the CPGB and British Communism

• Morgan, Kevin. Bolshevism and the British Left. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 2006.
• Worley, Matthew. Class Against Class: The Communist Party in Britain Between the Wars. London: I.B. Tauris, 2002.
• Francis, Hywel. Miners Against Fascism: Wales and the Spanish Civil War. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1984.
• McIlroy, John, and Alan Campbell, eds. The Communist Party of Great Britain and the Trade Unions, 1933–1945. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 2001.

Spanish Civil War and Communist Strategy

• Graham, Helen. The Spanish Republic at War, 1936–1939. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
• Preston, Paul. The Spanish Holocaust. London: HarperCollins, 2012.
• Broué, Pierre, and Émile Témime. The Revolution and Civil War in Spain. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2006.
• Orwell, George. Homage to Catalonia. London: Secker & Warburg, 1938.

Hungary 1956 and Soviet Repression

• Sebestyen, Victor. Twelve Days: The Story of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006.
• Granville, Johanna. The First Domino: International Decision Making During the Hungarian Crisis of 1956. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2004.
• Lukács, György. The Lukács Reader. Edited by Arpad Kadarkay. Oxford: Blackwell, 1995.

General Works on Stalinism and the Twentieth Century

• Conquest, Robert. The Great Terror. London: Macmillan, 1968.
• Getty, J. Arch, and Oleg Naumov. The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self‑Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932–1939. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999.
• Fitzpatrick, Sheila. Everyday Stalinism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
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