As well as having our book stall at the 2009 Bristol Anarchist Book Fair some members of the BRHG mob gave a series of talks in conjunction with Bristol Indymedia. From Peterloo to Captain Swing: Victims or Insurgents? - Roger A BRHG talk on the hidden history of struggle in the 19th century. It focuses on how and why major struggles have been ignored or distorted by the left as well as the right. See the slides from this talk (1.25 MB pdf file) A Brief History of Corporations - Dan Bennett A […]
As a tasty hors d'oeuvre to Bristol Radical History Week 2008 we are extremely pleased to present Lucio Urtubia, anarchist, bank robber, forger, fugitive and above all bricklayer. Lucio’s life is the stuff of legend. As an activist in 1950s Paris he counted André Breton and Albert Camus amongst his friends, worked with anarchist guerrilla Francisco Sabate in attempting to bring down Franco’s fascist regime and carried out numerous bank robberies to fund the struggle to free Spain. In 1977, after […]
The Real Pirates Of The Caribbean - Marcus Rediker Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh (USA) and the author of The Many Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea : Merchant Seamen, Pirates and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700-1750, Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age and this year The Slave Ship: A Human History. Marcus Rediker explores the 'Golden Age' of […]
Smugglers: Radicals Or Romantic - Kevin Davis Easton Cowboy and refugee from Dorset, Kevin claims to have left his life of wrecking and smuggling behind in his hometown of Poole. But who knows? 'Official' history tells us that the smugglers of the 18th and 19th century were shadowy, brutal thugs, a threat to the economy, law and order and moral fabric of a whole nation. Yet popular culture then as now celebrates these same figures as brave, cunning and noble folk heroes. Using the case study of […]
Custom Becomes Crime, Crime Becomes Culture: The Sea Related Informal Economies From Feudalism To Capitalism - Trevor Bark Troublemaker and academic from the North East, Trevor is on the editorial board of Capital and Class. He is an expert on the social history of crime and author of papers such as 'Crime becomes Custom, Custom becomes Crime'. This talk describes the inter-related nature of the sea based informal economies through time, and in the process drawing out important characteristics. […]
Available as a PDF file here. This paper is famous, so I thought I better read it and I was not disappointed. Thompson is at his cheeky best, starting the article by taking the piss out of anthropologists and their complex analyses of 'exotic' cultures whilst the English working class is reduced to disorganised, amoral, sub-humans by historians. Thompson analyses the corn and bread 'riots' of the 18th century and not only shows their popular character but also the organised and often successful […]
Classic set of essays shattering the illusion of a tranquil 18th Century full of happy peasants and deferential workers promoted by establishment historians. From poaching wars to smugglers, wreckers and rioters these essays provide the hard evidence for the raging class war of the period. E.P.Thompson's study on the 'incendiary letter' is absolute quality and will still send shivers up the spine of the wealthy…(BRHG)
Christopher Hill was getting on a bit when he wrote this but he clearly still had lots of stuff to get out there. What a source book he has produced. Hill shows that barely a fifth of the population were content with a legal system which was enclosing the commons, crushing customary rights and creating a class of landless labourers. Highwaymen, pirates, gypsies, vagabonds, levellers and religious radicals (amongst others) fight these changes creating their own culture of resistance in the […]
A look at the history of smuggling in Dorset and the government responses to it. This pamphlet examines to whether smugglers should be considered folk heroes and to what extent smuggling was a community enterprise.
The slides from Roger Ball's talk Branscombe Bay And The Sea Commons which was part of Bristol Radical History Week 2007 – Pirates, Witches & Smugglers. Download the pdf file here.
