Radical Histories

Abstract

In 2016 it was twenty years since the death of Raphael Samuel, historian and inspiration for History Workshop. To mark his memory the Centre for History named after him, together with History Workshop Journal, devised a conference in which the project of radical history in our own times could be debated. In the same spirit, Felix Driver has brought together a special virtual issue of History Workshop Journal comprised of Samuel’s contributions to the journal for the first twenty years of its life (http://www.historyworkshop.org.uk/history-workshop-journal-virtual-special-issue-raphael-samuel/). How is the radicalness of ‘radical’ history to be determined? Where, today, are radical histories located? Several hundred people gathered at Queen Mary University of London in July 2016 to discuss these questions. In the event, not for the first time, history moved faster than we did. The Brexit vote had just occurred. Indeed, as it turned out, the bulk of the editorial work for this issue of HWJ was undertaken in the period between the EU referendum, in June, and the election of Trump, in November. Each in its way can be perceived as a resurgence of a certain radical sensibility. But not in the way that we’d imagined. History looks significantly different at the end of the year than it did at the start. The crisis in the old political order, in Europe and in North America, is deepening; illiberalism in India, the world’s largest democracy, points toward right-wing, nationalist, populist sentiment. New dangers press in close. Reflection on where we are historically calls for sustained work.