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Vintage Red.Docx, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

Radical History And Labour History, Terry Irving, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

This piece by Terry Irving and Rowan Cahill was published on their 'Radical Sydney/Radical History' blog (19 February 2015). It welcomes the Radical History Conference (London, 24 March 2015) and reflects on how the political heritage of labour, the original impulse for 'labour history', is energising a new generation of radical historians.

Challenges To Labour History, Terry Irving

Terence H Irving, Dr (Terry)

The decline of the labour movement in the 1980s and 1990s robbed labour history of its elan as 'history with a social purpose', and the rise of postmodernism devalued the attempt by labour historians to grasp social reality as a whole. Today there is a commonly expressed feeling that labour history is experiencing a crisis. The first three essays in this volume are historiographical; then four essays engage with the challenges posed by post-modernism and cultural theory; and finally four essays present examples of the ways in which theoretical reappraisals can shape the writing of labour history.

Rediscovering Radical History, Terry Irving

Terence H Irving, Dr (Terry)

This article examines aspects of the connection between radical history and labour history in Australia. It begins by resurrecting the forgotten history work by intellectuals in the labour movement from the 1880s to the 1950s, and the conservative attacks on radical history in the 50s and 60s. It continues by highlighting the early attempts to keep this radical tradition alive among labour historians, and concludes by criticising Robin Gollan's failure to distinguish popular democracy from the democratic possibilities of representative government.

Labour Historians As Labour Intellectuals: Generations And Crises, Terry Irving, Sean Scalmer

Terry Irving

Over the last nine decades Australian labour historians have been engaged in a massive, ongoing, fractious, collective intellectual project. This chapter argues that labour historians should understand their role historically, as labour intellectuals, and sketches three generational moments in the history of labour history intellectuals. We conclude that labour history is a popular, collective, democratic, regional, and political form of history-writing.

Challenges To Labour History, Terry Irving

Terry Irving

The decline of the labour movement in the 1980s and 1990s robbed labour history of its elan as 'history with a social purpose', and the rise of postmodernism devalued the attempt by labour historians to grasp social reality as a whole. Today there is a commonly expressed feeling that labour history is experiencing a crisis. The first three essays in this volume are historiographical; then four essays engage with the challenges posed by post-modernism and cultural theory; and finally four essays present examples of the ways in which theoretical reappraisals can shape the writing of labour history.