Captain Swing
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Condition: Good. Jacket: Worn/faded, chipped and worn with some minor damage to corners and edges. Page Condition: Good. Markings: No markings visible. Binding: Intact.
A landmark work in social history, Captain Swing chronicles the rural uprising that swept across southern England in 1830, when desperate farm labourers — signing their threatening letters with the mythical name Captain Swing — smashed threshing machines and burned hayricks in protest against enclosure, low wages, and the encroachment of industrial agriculture. Written by two of the twentieth century's most distinguished Marxist historians, the book reconstructs the anatomy of the revolt with meticulous archival research, mapping the geography of unrest and identifying the social forces that ignited and ultimately crushed the movement. The authors argue that the Swing Riots were not mere criminal disorder but a coherent form of collective bargaining by riot, a desperate assertion of pre-industrial rights by a class being pushed toward destitution. Authoritative, politically engaged, and richly detailed, it remains an essential text for understanding the transformation of the English countryside and the birth of modern labour consciousness.
Author: E.J. Hobsbawm & George Rudé
Format: Hardback
Genre: British & Irish history
Condition remarks:
Condition: Good. Jacket: Worn/faded, chipped and worn with some minor damage to corners and edges. Page Condition: Good. Markings: No markings visible. Binding: Intact.
A landmark work in social history, Captain Swing chronicles the rural uprising that swept across southern England in 1830, when desperate farm labourers — signing their threatening letters with the mythical name Captain Swing — smashed threshing machines and burned hayricks in protest against enclosure, low wages, and the encroachment of industrial agriculture. Written by two of the twentieth century's most distinguished Marxist historians, the book reconstructs the anatomy of the revolt with meticulous archival research, mapping the geography of unrest and identifying the social forces that ignited and ultimately crushed the movement. The authors argue that the Swing Riots were not mere criminal disorder but a coherent form of collective bargaining by riot, a desperate assertion of pre-industrial rights by a class being pushed toward destitution. Authoritative, politically engaged, and richly detailed, it remains an essential text for understanding the transformation of the English countryside and the birth of modern labour consciousness.