Raphael Samuel

Raphael Samuel (September 26, 1934, London - December 9, 1996, London) was a Marxist historian. He was professor of history at the University of East London at the time of his death. Samuel's mother, Minna Nerenstein, was an active member of the British Communist Party which Samuel was also a member of from his teenage years until 1956.

At University, Samuel became a member of the Communist Party Historians Group, alongside Christopher Hill, E. P. Thompson and others. He co-founded the journal, "Past and Present" in 1952, and pioneered the study of working-class history. He founded the History Workshop movement at Ruskin College, Oxford, where he was a teacher in 1967. Samuel's archive is held at Bishopsgate Library.

After his 1996 death, the "East London History Centre" of the University of East London was renamed the "Raphael Samuel History Centre" in honor of his role in creating it. The Centre was established to investigate and document the history of London since the eighteenth century. Consistent with Samuel's belief that historical studies should extend outside the academy, the Centre encourages research in the community, and the publication of materials ranging from monographs by established scholars to student dissertations and ‘Notes and Queries’ features in the local press. [http://www.raphaelsamuel.org.uk/Centre/About-the-Centre.htm]

In an obituary in the journal Radical Philosophy, Carolyn Steedman describes Samuel's work:

Like Raymond Williams and Edward Thompson, he produced his historical work in interaction with working-class adult returners to education...The standard charge against the history Samuel inspired was of a fanatical empiricism and a romantic merging of historians and their subjects in crowded narratives, in which each hard-won detail of working lives, wrenched from the cold indifference of posterity, is piled upon another, in a relentless rescue of the past. When he was himself subject to these charges, it was presumably his fine — and immensely detailed — accounts of the labour process that critics had in mind. But it was meaning rather than minutiae that he cared about. [http://www.radicalphilosophy.com/default.asp?channel_id=2191&editorial_id=9846]

References

*McWilliam, Rohan "Samuel, Raphael" pages 1047-1048 from "The Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing" Volume 2, edited by Kelly Boyd, London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1999, ISBN 1-884964-33-8.
*Thompson, Paul "Raphael Samuel, 1934-96: An Appreciation" pages 30-37 from "Oral History", Volume 25, 1997.

Selected bibliography

* cite book
last=Samuel
first=Raphael
title=Village Life and Labour
year=1975
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* cite book
last=Samuel
first=Raphael
title=Miners, Quarrymen and Saltworkers
year=1977
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* cite book
last=Samuel
first=Raphael
title=People's History and Socialist Theory
series=History Workshop Series
year=1981
publisher=Routledge Kegan & Paul
id=ISBN 0-7100-0765-5
* cite book
last=Samuel
first=Raphael
title=East End Underworld
year=1981
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* cite book
last=Samuel
first=Raphael
title=Culture, Ideology and Politics
year=1983
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* cite book
last=Samuel
first=Raphael
title=Theatres of the Left: 1880-1935
year=1985
publisher=
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* cite book
last=Samuel
first=Raphael
title=The Lost World of Communism
year=1986
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* cite book
last=Samuel
first=Raphael
title=The Enemy Within: The Miners' Strike of 1984
year=1987
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* cite book
last=Samuel
first=Raphael
title=Patriotism: The Making and Unmaking of British National Identity : Minorities and Outsiders
series=History Workshop
year=1989
publisher=Routledge Kegan & Paul
id=ISBN 0-415-02773-X
* cite book
last=Samuel
first=Raphael
title=Patriotism (Volume 2): Minorities and Outsiders
series=History Workshop
year=1989
publisher=Taylor & Francis Books Ltd
id=ISBN 0-415-01302-X
* cite book
last=Samuel
first=Raphael
title=The Myths We Live By
year=1990
publisher=
id=
* cite book
last=Samuel
first=Raphael
title=Theatres of Memory: Past and Present in Contemporary Culture
year=1996
publisher=Verso
location=London
id=ISBN 1-85984-077-9
* cite book
last=Samuel
first=Raphael
title=Island Stories: Unravelling Britain
year=1997
publisher=Verso
location=London
id=ISBN 1-85984-190-2
* cite book
last=Samuel
first=Raphael
title=The Lost World of British Communism
year=2006
publisher=Verso
location=London
id=ISBN 1-84467-103-8

External links

* [http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/HISsamuelR.htm A short bio] for Raphael Samuel on Schoolnet.co.uk
* [http://www.radicalphilosophy.com/default.asp?channel_id=2191&editorial_id=9846 Profile] in "Radical Philosophy"
* [http://www.raphael-samuel.org.uk/ website of the Raphael Samuel History Centre]
* [http://www.bishopsgate.org.uk/content.asp?CategoryID=1008 content description of Samuel's archive at Bishopsgate Library]