A landmark new history of the peasant experience, exploring a now neglected way of life that once encompassed most of humanity but is vanishing in our time. "What the skeleton is to anatomy, the peasant is to history, its essential hidden support." For over the past century and a half, and still more rapidly in the last seventy years, the world has become increasingly urban, and the peasant way of life--the dominant way of life for humanity since agriculture began well over 6,000 years ago--is disappearing. In this new history of peasantry, social historian Patrick Joyce aims to tell the story of this lost world and its people, and how we can commemorate their way of life. In one sense, this is a global history, ambitious in scope, taking us from the urbanization of the early 19th century to the present day. But more specifically, Joyce's focus is the demise of the European peasantry and of their rites, traditions, and beliefs. Alongside this he brings in stories of individuals as well as places, including his own family, and looks at how peasants and their ways of life have been memorialized in photographs, literature, and in museums. Joyce explores a people whose voice is vastly underrepresented in human history and is usually mediated through others. And now peasants are vanishing in one of the greatest historical transformations of our time. Written with the skill and authority of a great historian, Remembering Peasants is a landmark work, a richly complex and passionate history written with exquisite care. It is also deeply resonant, as Joyce shines a light on people whose knowledge of the land is being irretrievably lost during our critical time of climate crisis and the rise of industrial agriculture. Enlightening, timely, and vitally important, this book commemorates an extraordinary culture whose impact on history--and the future--remains profoundly relevant.

What is the state? The State of Freedom offers an important new take on this classic question by exploring what exactly the state did and how it worked. Patrick Joyce asks us to re-examine the ordinary things of the British state from dusty government files and post offices to well-thumbed primers in ancient Greek and Latin and the classrooms and dormitories of public schools and Oxbridge colleges. This is also a history of the 'who' and the 'where' of the state, of the people who ran the state, the government offices they sat in and the college halls they dined in. Patrick Joyce argues that only by considering these things, people and places can we really understand the nature of the modern state. This is both a pioneering new approach to political history in which social and material factors are centre stage, and a highly original history of modern Britain.

This edited collection is a major contribution to the current development of a 'material turn' in the social sciences and humanities. It does so by exploring new understandings of how power is made up and exercised by examining the role of material infrastructures in the organization of state power and the role of material cultural practices in the organization of colonial forms of governance. A diverse range of historical examples is drawn on in illustrating these concerns - from the role of territorial engineering projects in seventeenth-century France through the development of the postal system in nineteenth-century Britain to the relations between the state and road-building in contemporary Peru, for example. The colonial contexts examined are similarly varied, ranging from the role of photographic practices in the constitution of colonial power in India and the measurement of the bodies of the colonized in French colonial practices to the part played by the relations between museums and expeditions in the organization of Australian forms of colonial rule. These specific concerns are connected to major critical re-examination of the limits of the earlier formulations of cultural materialism and the logic of the 'cultural turn'. The collection brings together a group of key international scholars whose work has played a leading role in debates in and across the fields of history, visual culture studies, anthropology, geography, cultural studies, museum studies, and literary studies.

This edited collection is a major contribution to the current development of a 'material turn' in the social sciences and humanities. It does so by exploring new understandings of how power is made up and exercised by examining the role of material infrastructures in the organization of state power and the role of material cultural practices in the organization of colonial forms of governance.

A diverse range of historical examples is drawn on in illustrating these concerns - from the role of territorial engineering projects in seventeenth-century France through the development of the postal system in nineteenth-century Britain to the relations between the state and road-building in contemporary Peru, for example. The colonial contexts examined are similarly varied, ranging from the role of photographic practices in the constitution of colonial power in India and the measurement of the bodies of the colonized in French colonial practices to the part played by the relations between museums and expeditions in the organization of Australian forms of colonial rule. These specific concerns are connected to major critical re-examination of the limits of the earlier formulations of cultural materialism and the logic of the 'cultural turn'.

The collection brings together a group of key international scholars whose work has played a leading role in debates in and across the fields of history, visual culture studies, anthropology, geography, cultural studies, museum studies, and literary studies.

With postmodernism has come the questioning of the very idea of 'the social'. Thinkers form across the social sciences and humanities now agree that this one foundational concept can no longer be taken for granted as an objective or real characteristic of the world. However, their uncertainty has taken on many guises and the social in Question represents an attempt to pull these diverse forms of questioning together.Drawn form sociology, cultural studies, history and theology, an international and eminent cast of contributors look at how the idea of 'the social' developed from its mediaeval foundations to its consolidation in the early twentieth century. The book then charts how the concept has been brought into the question by critiques from science studies, cultural studies and postcolonial studies before going on to look at how new framework are being proposed for the exploration of issues formerly seen as 'the social'. This book makes a fascinating contribution to the rethinking of contemporary academic activity.

With postmodernism has come the questioning of the very idea of 'the social'. Thinkers form across the social sciences and humanities now agree that this one foundational concept can no longer be taken for granted as an objective or real characteristic of the world. However, their uncertainty has taken on many guises and the social in Question represents an attempt to pull these diverse forms of questioning together.Drawn form sociology, cultural studies, history and theology, an international and eminent cast of contributors look at how the idea of 'the social' developed from its mediaeval foundations to its consolidation in the early twentieth century. The book then charts how the concept has been brought into the question by critiques from science studies, cultural studies and postcolonial studies before going on to look at how new framework are being proposed for the exploration of issues formerly seen as 'the social'. This book makes a fascinating contribution to the rethinking of contemporary academic activity.

What is the state? The State of Freedom offers an important new take on this classic question by exploring what exactly the state did and how it worked. Patrick Joyce asks us to re-examine the ordinary things of the British state from dusty government files and post offices to well-thumbed primers in ancient Greek and Latin and the classrooms and dormitories of public schools and Oxbridge colleges. This is also a history of the 'who' and the 'where' of the state, of the people who ran the state, the government offices they sat in and the college halls they dined in. Patrick Joyce argues that only by considering these things, people and places can we really understand the nature of the modern state. This is both a pioneering new approach to political history in which social and material factors are centre stage, and a highly original history of modern Britain.

This pioneering and original study explores critically the nature of class identity by looking at the formation and influence of two men (Edwin Waugh and John Bright) who might be taken as representative of what 'working class' and 'middle class' meant in England in the nineteenth century. The two studies of individuals are complemented by a further study on narrative in pointing to the great importance of the collective subjects upon which democracy rested. The book indicates the way forward to a new history of democracy as an imagined entity. It represents a deepening of Patrick Joyce's engagement with 'post-modernist' theory, seeking the relevance of this theory for the writing of history, and in the process offering a critique of the conservatism of much academic history, particularly in Britain.

This is a study of how the labouring poor of nineteenth-century industrial England saw the social order of which they were a part. It attacks orthodoxies and sets up new questions by attending to a wide range of contemporary experience, from politics and work to language and art.

A historian's personal journey into the complex questions of immigration, home and nation From Ireland to London in the 1950s, Derry in the Troubles to contemporary, de-industrialised Manchester, Joyce finds the ties of place, family and the past are difficult to break. Why do certain places continue to haunt us? What does it mean to be British after the suffering of Empire and of war? How do we make our home in a hypermobile world without remembering our pasts? Patrick Joyce's parents moved from Ireland in the 1930s and made their home in west London. But they never really left the homeland. And so as he grew up among the streets of Paddington and Notting Hill and when he visited his family in Ireland he felt a tension between the notions of home, nation and belonging. Going to My Father's House charts the historian's attempt to make sense of these ties and to see how they manifest in a globalised world. He explores the places - the house, the street, the walls and the graves - that formed his own identity. He ask what place the ideas of history, heritage and nostalgia have in creating a sense of our selves. He concludes with a plea for a history that holds the past to account but also allows for dynamic, inclusive change.

The 12 essays in this volume propose new directions in the analysis of class. John R. Hall argues that recent historical and intellectual developments require reworking basic assumptions about classes and their dynamics. The contributors effectively abandon the notion of a transcendent class struggle. They seek instead to understand the historically contingent ways in which economic interests are pursued under institutionally, socially and culturally structured circumstances. In his introduction, Hall proposes a neo-Weberian venue intended to bring the most promising contemporary approaches to class analysis into productive exchange with one another. Some of the chapters that follow rework how classes are conceptualized. Others offer historical and sociological reflections on questions of class identity. A third cluster focuses on the politics of class mobilizations and social movements in contexts of national and global economic change.

If you've reached the limits of Western medicine and need an extra edge in your battle against cancer, this book explains the foremost alternative cancer treatment choices that could improve your chances for recovery. This independently written, professionally researched book explains the most significant alternative cancer treatments that are worth considering. You will learn, compare and contrast all the major alternative cancer treatment options, making you more informed and giving you the power to make the best possible treatment decisions. We bust the scam treatments and showcase the remedies which have genuine clinical evidence to back up the claims. From product and practitioner contacts to treatment cost, we make alternative cancer treatments a safe and effective option for sufferers. Independently researched and unbiased. The foremost alternative cancer treatments assessed and compared. We expose the myths and scam treatments. Solid ways to improve your chances for recovery. Extensive scientific research, peer reviewed and referenced. Continually updated, most current information available today.

In this wide-ranging volume, leading scholars across several disciplines--history, literature, sociology, and cultural studies--investigate the nature of liberalism and modernity in imperial Britain since the eighteenth century. They show how Britain's liberal version of modernity (of capitalism, democracy, and imperialism) was the product of a peculiar set of historical circumstances that continues to haunt our neoliberal present.

The liberal governance of the nineteenth-century state and city depended on the rule of freedom. As a form of rule it relied on the production of certain kinds of citizens and patterns of social life, which in turn depended on transforming both the material form of the city (its layout, architecture, infrastructure) and the ways it was inhabited and imagined by its leaders, citizens and custodians. Focusing mainly on London and Manchester, but with reference also to Glasgow, Dublin, Paris, Vienna, colonial India, and even contemporary Los Angeles, Patrick Joyce creatively and originally develops Foucauldian approaches to historiography to reflect on the nature of modern liberal society. His consideration of such artifacts as maps and censuses, sewers and markets, public libraries and parks, and of civic governments and city planning, are intertwined with theoretical interpretations to examine both the impersonal, often invisible forms of social direction and control built into the infrastructure of modern life and the ways in which these mechanisms both shape culture and social life and engender popular resistance.

With a new Preface by the author. The acclaimed major interpretation of 19th century society and politics concerning the human impact of the industrial revolution. Offers a subtle and responsive understanding of the formation of class consciousness, and a recognition that deference and stability as well as independence in class relations grew out of working-class culture and community , and thus out of the centre of people's lives.

In Postsocial History: An Introduction, historian Miguel A. Cabrera points to the crisis of modernity as a locus for the collapse of social historical models. Previously established theories of social change and social relations are proving insufficient, calling for the emergence of a new social historical theory. Cabrera finds the answer in language, which, more than being a mere communicative tool, he believes to be capable of playing an active role in the forces of social change. Postsocial History is a lucid and unprecedented account of the need for a new, modern theoretical model. By arguing convincingly for the inclusion of language in that model, Cabrera awakens a revolutionary new approach to historiography. This book will prove indispensable to historians, and to social scientists in general, who are dissatisfied with the old paradigms and seek new ways of addressing the challenges of social research.

In Postsocial History: An Introduction, historian Miguel A. Cabrera points to the crisis of modernity as a locus for the collapse of social historical models. Previously established theories of social change and social relations are proving insufficient, calling for the emergence of a new social historical theory. Cabrera finds the answer in language, which, more than being a mere communicative tool, he believes to be capable of playing an active role in the forces of social change. Postsocial History is a lucid and unprecedented account of the need for a new, modern theoretical model. By arguing convincingly for the inclusion of language in that model, Cabrera awakens a revolutionary new approach to historiography. This book will prove indispensable to historians, and to social scientists in general, who are dissatisfied with the old paradigms and seek new ways of addressing the challenges of social research.

In recent years, the concept of class has come under increasing scrutiny, as a means of explaining both the present and the past. The post-industrial class has superceded the manual working class, and new forms of industrial management have broken up more traditional hierarchies and outlooks. Furthermore, feminism has now brought into question the whole concept of a class identity. Can class viably explain the present? Did it ever provide an adequate explanation of the past? How did concepts of class develop? What is the language of class? A variety of writings are drawn upon here to provide a balanced survey of thought on class, from Marx and Weber to the present day, and to look beyond this towards the very future of class.

The acclaimed major interpretation of 19th century society and politics concerning the human impact of the industrial revolution. Offers a subtle and responsive understanding of the formation of class consciousness, and a recognition that deference and stability as well as independence in class relations grew out of working-class culture and community, and thus out of the centre of people's lives. With a new Preface by the author.