Recent Criticisms of Labour History in Britain and Australia

Abstract

The historian of historiographical controversy characteristically stages a contest between straw men of his own creation. As J. G. A. Pocock has noted in a different context, the rhetoric of the exercise demands that this be so.1 When our concern is with the relationship between old and new it is not possible to do justice to the complexities of each; of necessity we resort to near-caricature. With apologies having been offered at the outset, then, this article outlines the somewhat chequered career of labour history in Britain and Australia. Part I con centrates on the development of labour history in Britain and of the critique mounted in the name of social history. Part II describes the state of the controversy in Australia. Some trenchant conclusions are offered; it is hoped that they will serve a heuristic purpose.