Ian,
Just want to recc a few historical texts Ive found immensely rich:
*Fanshen* and *Shenfan* by william Hinton, two accounts of revolution and
collectivization in the countryside during and after the creation of the
PRChina. (in ENglish, btw)
Ditto for Jan Myrdal (and Gun Kessel), whose work is a bit more
anthropological or oral-hitorian (*Revolution Continued*, *Return to a
Chinese Village* *Report from a Chinese Village*).
*both H's and M's work is unconventional, richly detailed, politically
astute, bottoms-up historiography. Closest stuff Ive seen (in the West) to
the absolutely ground-breaking work of the *Subaltern Studies* group, who
must have a dozen volumes out by now.
For them, a good place to start would be the *Selected Subaltern Studies*
volumes, various editors for all this, but often R. Guha. Topics vary,
often about peasant rebellions, always richly detailed but theoretically
driven, great "counter-histories"
Relatedly, there is Said's *Orientalism,* still the best use of the
archeological Foucault that I know of.
Finally, E.P. Thompson's *Making of the English Working Class* is
justifiably famous. Not a Foucauldian, but akin in its relay movements b/w
the micro and macro.
Three cheers for Braudel, too, and Norbert Elias's work (which Ive been
dying to actually read), esp the 2 vol's of *The Civilizing Process*.
You might also want to check out Elias Canetti's *Crowds and Power* which
is extremely Nietzchean, indeed too much so for my own taste (i.e.,
ultimately seems more like archetypal criticism than history per se).
But for what its worth, I would esp recc the Hinton, Myrdal and Subaltern
Studies work, as it is I think less well known, goes further in
provincializing Europe, and is both more contemporary and more rich in detail.
Have fun!
--Daniel
Daniel Vukovich
English; The Unit for Criticism
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Just want to recc a few historical texts Ive found immensely rich:
*Fanshen* and *Shenfan* by william Hinton, two accounts of revolution and
collectivization in the countryside during and after the creation of the
PRChina. (in ENglish, btw)
Ditto for Jan Myrdal (and Gun Kessel), whose work is a bit more
anthropological or oral-hitorian (*Revolution Continued*, *Return to a
Chinese Village* *Report from a Chinese Village*).
*both H's and M's work is unconventional, richly detailed, politically
astute, bottoms-up historiography. Closest stuff Ive seen (in the West) to
the absolutely ground-breaking work of the *Subaltern Studies* group, who
must have a dozen volumes out by now.
For them, a good place to start would be the *Selected Subaltern Studies*
volumes, various editors for all this, but often R. Guha. Topics vary,
often about peasant rebellions, always richly detailed but theoretically
driven, great "counter-histories"
Relatedly, there is Said's *Orientalism,* still the best use of the
archeological Foucault that I know of.
Finally, E.P. Thompson's *Making of the English Working Class* is
justifiably famous. Not a Foucauldian, but akin in its relay movements b/w
the micro and macro.
Three cheers for Braudel, too, and Norbert Elias's work (which Ive been
dying to actually read), esp the 2 vol's of *The Civilizing Process*.
You might also want to check out Elias Canetti's *Crowds and Power* which
is extremely Nietzchean, indeed too much so for my own taste (i.e.,
ultimately seems more like archetypal criticism than history per se).
But for what its worth, I would esp recc the Hinton, Myrdal and Subaltern
Studies work, as it is I think less well known, goes further in
provincializing Europe, and is both more contemporary and more rich in detail.
Have fun!
--Daniel
Daniel Vukovich
English; The Unit for Criticism
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign