Comments on: Brian Manning and Marxism

By: mercurius politicus

mercurius politicus — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 20:29:30 +0000

The English People and the English Revolution covers 1642 in some depth – it tries to mix a “high” political narrative of events in Westminster with a “low” political narrative of popular protests and blossomings of allegiance across England – mixed with analysis of both. It’s worth a look although his account of Westminster politics very out-dated. Depends what your article’s going to cover, really – if it’s looking at popular politics then his work is worthy of mention, along with that of Robert Brenner. Also worth a look is a particular chapter of James Holstun’s Ehud’s Dagger, which looks at the decline of Marxist historiography in some depth and tries to rehabilitate it (making some good points about revisionism, but ultimately failing to convince I think). Unfortunately I can’t remember which chapter it is because I’m in the middle of moving house and have packed up my books! (it might be chapter 2).

By: Gavin Robinson

Gavin Robinson — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 18:59:35 +0000

I should also have mentioned that although he doesn’t cite James Scott or use the “hidden transcript” jargon, he does say pretty much what Andy Wood and Steve Hindle have said about deference being a facade which doesn’t necessarily reflect what common people really thought.

The defence of base/superstructure which I quoted is the main place where jargon gets out of hand but I think that defence is unnecessary itself. Instead of saying “but I’m not an economic determinist and you don’t understand Marxist theory properly blah blah class consciousness whatever” he could just as easily have said “but I’m not an economic determinist and my work shows how the base/superstructure model is inadequate”.

I’m undecided about whether to investigate further and look into works where he addresses 1642 more directly. I just picked this book because it was short, cheap and fairly recent. Since not many people seem to take him seriously I’m not really under any pressure to engage with his work, and I suspect I could get an article about the outbreak of civil war through peer review without mentioning him at all. On the other hand I was pleasantly surprised to find a lot of interesting stuff here about property rights and nature which will be useful for other things I’m working on.

By: mercurius politicus

mercurius politicus — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 18:41:29 +0000

I think you’re right to pick Manning up on his use of sources. John Morrill made this point well in his review of The English People and the English Revolution when he argued that the Thomason Tracts just couldn’t do what Manning wanted them to do – as a source for what writes, publishers, MPs and grandees wanted the public/a section(s) of the public to think, they are vital (and perhaps still underused). But as a straightforward mirror of popular allegiance and ideology, they are far more problematic.

Where I have a huge amount of time for Manning is in his intellectual approach to the 1640s and 1650s – as opposed to his class-based analysis. If you go beyond the Marx-inspired language (although he’s good at not using too much jargon), you see quite a sophisticated framework for examining popular allegiance. It mixes short-term triggers with consideration of political ideology and religion, while anchoring it all in a longer-term social and economic context. He was insistent on looking both at social history and political history. In many ways this anticipates the work of historians like Dan Beaver and Andy Wood – take away the insistence on class as the primary factor, and their methods of analysing and reconstructing allegiance look quite similar.

My own suspicion is that Manning’s work is a case of the baby being thrown out with the bathwater as far as his critics were concerned – the reviews were so hostile to the Marxian framework he used that the good things in his work were left slightly unnoticed, and have had to wait 20-25 years for other historians to revisit them.