Product Description

"The Lost World of British Communism" is a rare act of political remembrance without nostalgia, by one of postwar Britain's most notable historians. This extraordinary attempt at writing a new kind of history of the Communist Party of Great Britain - part social history, part memoir, part intellectual history - draws on novels and his own childhood recollections of London's East End as well as on memoirs and Party archives. In it, Samuel evokes the world of British Communism in the 1940s, when the movement was at the peak of its political and theoretical power, bringing together a remarkable group of Marxist historians. First published in the "New Left Review" between 1985 and 1987, "The Lost World of British Communism" was prophetic in raising questions over socialist motivation and collective identity in the mid-1980s, and warning of the dangers of an amnesiac surrender of the Communist past.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #306312 in Books
• Published on: 2006-11-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

Review
"One of the most outstanding, original intellectuals of his generation: a passionate, creative and innovative social historian and a man of unique personal qualities and distinction of mind and spirit." - Stuart Hall, New Left Review "Raphael Samuel gave new meaning to the idea of history... He brought to the writing and popularisation of history a seemingly inexhaustible energy and creativity." - Gareth Stedman Jones, Independent "Samuel was born to be an historian. He had the vital quality of living at the same time in the past, the present and the future. Everything interested him, from public health to colonial rebellion and from street lighting to street fighting." - The Times

About the Author
Raphael Samuel (1934-1996) was a tutor in History at Ruskin College, Oxford, and a founding editor of History Workshop Journal. In 1995 he became professor at the University of East London. Verso has also published the highly acclaimed Theatres of Memory, and the follow-up volume, Island Stories.

Customer Reviews

Underated left historian
Very interesting book which delves deeply in to what it meant to be a member of the CPGB (now CPB), the motivation and philosophy in the heyday of left politics in the UK. I enjoyed this book, well I would because I was a fellow believer so I am a bit biased. However it is not all sweetness and light, as Samuel looks at the darker Stalinist side as well. Not a history of the CPGB in the sense of the word, but a series of articles written over a long period of time watching from the viewpoiunt of an insider, then later watching from the sidelines.
The reader will need some idea of UK political and industrial history to sometimes match Samuel's very illustrative words to events of the time. A joy to read, a much underated historian and social commentator of the left.