Morton's book is only unknown if you're not a fan of English history. . . . Btw, the Great Charter is called Magna Carta, not The Magna Carte; it doesn't take a definite article. Apologies for the pedantic point, but English constitutional (and popular) history is a bit of a hobby. Please note that Morton gets it right (natch). Don't hold his CPishness against him. The British CP historians were the great cradle of historical studies in English: E.P. Thompson, Rodney Hilton, Chritopher Hill, Dana Torr, E.J. Hobsbawm, Morton himself, all were Communists. Similarly in France, btw, with Bloch, Soboul and LeFebre, though I don't know French historiography as I do English. The CPGB was always a fairly pleasant and innocuous group. When I was in England in the early 80s it ran the best newspaper in the country, The Morning Star (I believe it was called). The Party has since dissolved.
Linebaugh is generally quite good, writes well. His The London Hanged is a genuine masterpiece. His more recent coathored Many Headed Baest, though it has some very nice bits, apparently has some real problems. David Brion Davis, a very able bourgeois scholar of the period and an expert on slavery, did a hatchet job on it in the NYRB, some of it was manifestly ideologically motivated, but if Davis is write Linebaugh may an inexcusable # of plain factual errors in the new book. jks --- Hari Kumar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Thank M, for a good reading tip. [Since > when did stop the ruling class puts its imprint on > anything?] > Since I am not an expert on middle age law, I found > myself retreating to > my usual Guide to English History as a first resort: > the much > under-known & largely ignored "Peoples History of > England", by > A.L.Morton; First 1938 most recently 1974 Lawrence & > Wishart. I still > think that sometimes less is more. Not that the > thrust of Linebuagh's > article extolling the Commons and the commoner > should be forgot. This > was also the message of others in the past such as > JL & Barbara Hammond > amongst many others. We will not even discuss Marx's > excoriation of > those like the Duchess of Argylle. > Anyway, that old hack Stalinist -pickaxe wielding > nutcase Morton has > this to say - & I think is more historically > relevant in the big . . . John was to some extent of a popular > character. Unwillingly be > submitted, and at Runnymede on June 15th, 1215, he > accepted the > programme of demands embodied by the barons in Magna > Carta. > Magna Carta has been rightly regarded as a turning > point in English > history, but almost always for wrong reasons. It was > not a > 'constitutional' document. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com
