Samuel Raphael Knihy

The Lost World of British Communism is a vivid account of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Raphael Samuel, one of post-war Britain's most notable historians, draws on novels of the period and childhood recollections of London's East End, as well as memoirs and Party archives, to evoke the world of British Communism in the 1940s. Samuel conjures up the era when the movement was at the height of its political and theoretical power, brilliantly bringing to life an age in which the Communist Party enjoyed huge prestige as a bulwark for the struggles against fascism and colonialism.

When Theatres of Memory was first published in 1994, it transformed the debate about what is to be considered history and questioned the role of “heritage” that lies at the heart of every Western nation’s obsession with the past. Today, in the age of Downton Abbey and Mad Men, we are once again conjuring historical fictions to make sense of our everyday lives. In this remarkable book, Samuel looks at the many different ways we use the ‘unofficial knowledge’ of the past. Considering such varied areas as the fashion for “retrofitting,” the rise of family history, the joys of collecting old photographs, the allure of reenactment societies and televised adaptations of Dickens, Samuel transforms our understanding of the uses of history. He shows us that history is a living practice, something constantly being reassessed in the world around us.

A collection of essays which offer a testimony of the dialogue between the present and the past.

A sequel to "Theatres of Memory", this book is a study of the way nations use their past to lend meaning to the present and future. It offers an account of the heroes and villains, legends and foibles of the four nations that inhabit the British Isles.

Miners, Quarrymen and Saltworkers (History Workshop Series)

Explores the changing notion of patriotism in British life from the thirteenth century to the present day in an attempt to come to terms with the power of the national idea.

Explores the changing notions of patriotism in British life from the thirteenth century to the present day in an attempt to come to terms with the power of the national idea.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Original Title Page -- Original Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- Notes on contributors -- Acknowledgements -- Preface -- Introduction: exciting to be English -- History -- 1 History and patriotism -- 2 Continuous national history -- 3 A defence of national history -- 4 True romances -- Politics -- 5 Were the English English? -- 6 National pride in seventeenth-century England -- 7 The language of patriotism -- 8 Little Englanders -- 9 Further thoughts on Little Englandism -- 10 Pro-Boers -- 11 Labour patriotism 1939-83

A new collection of essays from one of the most influential historians of the twentieth century.