Casualties of History: The Ruffian Crew of Power

Jacobin Radio

Jacobin

News, History, Politics

4.7 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 6 May 2020

⏱️ 82 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We cover Chapter Five, but first have an extensive discussion of the debate between Thompson and Perry Anderson and Tom Nairn over the history of social class and economic development in England, with sociologist Jonah Stuart-Brundage. What should we make of liberalism in England at the end of the eighteenth century and what it meant for the prospects of revolution?

Secondary readings:

Perry Anderson, “Origins of the Present Crisis” https://newleftreview.org/issues/I23/articles/perry-anderson-origins-of-the-present-crisis

Perry Anderson, “Socialism and Pseudo-Empiricism,” https://newleftreview.org/issues/I35/articles/perry-anderson-socialism-and-pseudo-empiricism

Arno Mayer, The Persistence of the Old Regime: Europe to the Great War https://www.versobooks.com/books/475-the-persistence-of-the-old-regime

Tom Nairn, “The British Political Elite” https://newleftreview.org/issues/I23/articles/tom-nairn-the-british-political-elite

Tom Nairn, “The British Working Class” https://newleftreview.org/issues/I24/articles/tom-nairn-the-english-working-class

Tom Nairn, “The Anatomy of the Labour Party: Part I” https://newleftreview.org/issues/I27/articles/tom-nairn-the-nature-of-the-labour-party-part-i

Tom Nairn, “The Anatomy of the Labour Party: Part II” https://newleftreview.org/issues/I28/articles/tom-nairn-the-nature-of-the-labour-party-part-ii

E.P. Thompson, “The Peculiarities of the English” https://www.marxists.org/archive/thompson-ep/1965/english.htm#n1

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey and welcome to casualties of history a podcast from Jackopin magazine I'm
0:07.8	Alex Press and with me is Gabe Wenant. This week we're covering Chapter 5
0:12.3	Planting the Liberty Tree.
0:14.0	We have a special guest this week.
0:17.0	Gabe, do you want to introduce him?
0:19.0	Sure, so our guest is Jonah Stewart Brundage, who is a sociologist
0:24.0	starting this summer,
0:26.9	a professor of sociology at University of Michigan,
0:30.0	currently a postdoctoral fellow of some kind right at the Harvard Kennedy School.
0:37.6	Jonah is future author of a book on England and France and the formation of their ruling
0:46.4	classes and geopolitics and diplomacy. Jonah and I also have been friends
0:52.1	since we were like five so it's nice to have them here.
0:54.8	Jonah is here with us to talk about Chapter 5, but also to talk about something that we have
1:00.0	teased and gotten into slightly a number of times over the show so far,
1:05.0	which is the debate between EP Thompson on one hand and Perry Anderson and Tom Nair and on the other,
1:12.0	about the nature of English
1:15.1	capitalism, English society, and the English working class. I think we've kind of
1:19.2	of referred to this mainly as the Thompson-Anderson debate. But as a scholar of the elites of France and England,
1:26.0	I thought Jonah would be a great guest to discuss this with us.
1:29.0	So let's get into it. Oh, it's a good thing. Oh, Well, thanks Gabe. It's great to be here and thanks to you as well Alex for bringing me on.
2:23.0	So do you want to start by just laying out for us in a kind of brief way?
2:28.0	What do you see as the kind of main sides of the debate?
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Jacobin, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Jacobin and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.