Friends and enemies of the people

Abstract

Ensconced in the safely distant present, modern historians have looked back in blanket approval to peasant rebellion and banditry, searching for a new history of the people and not their rulers. The sensitive work of Eric Hobsbawm, particularly Primitive Rebels and Bandits, has pioneered a methodology to rescue outlaws from traditional ruling-class condemnation and set them in the context of specific sociohistorical processes and pressures. Many historians of China, notably Susan Naquin and Elizabeth Perry, have followed this lead with impressive effect.