In the Name of Unions and Nation. The Development of Welsh Labour Historiography in the 1950s — 1990s
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http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11956/101823Identifiers
ISSN: 2336-6710
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- Číslo 2 [8]
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2017Publisher
Univerzita Karlova, Filozofická fakultaSource document
Prager wirtschafts- und sozialhistorische Mitteilungen - Prague Economic and Social History PapersPeriodical publication year: 2017
Periodical Volume: 26
Periodical Issue: 2
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http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/Keywords (English)
Labour History, Welsh History, Historiography, New Social HistoryThis article deals with the development of Welsh labour historiography after the Second
World War by situating Welsh labour historiography into a broader context of
social history. The aim of this article is to analyse the methodology of Welsh labour
historiography, as well as to discuss in how far it was influenced by the emergence of
a “new social history” represented by British Marxists. Furthermore, the article examines
to what extent Welsh labour historians responded to the challenges of postmodernism.
In the first part of the article, the book “Rebecca Riots” (1955) by Welsh
labour historian David Williams is compared with the works of British Marxists Eric
Hobsbawm and George Rudé. This is followed by two analyses: (1) an examination of
the Welsh labour journal “Llafur” founded in the 1970s, and (2) an analysis of the influential
book “The Fed” (1980) by Welsh labour historians Hywel Francis and David
Smith dealing with the development of the Welsh mining trade-union organization.
The last part of the article thematises the impact of postmodernism on Welsh labour
historiography. In general, the article discusses the advantages and disadvantages of
Welsh labour historiography and it argues that Welsh labour historiography could
make a considerable contribution to the development of social history by introducing
some concepts, such as a focus on the academic and non-academic spheres.