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E. P. THOMPSON, ‘SOCIAL HISTORY’, AND SOUTH AFRICAN HISTORIOGRAPHY, 1970–90*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2017

PETER DELIUS
PETER DELIUS*
Affiliation:
University of the Witwatersrand
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Abstract

It is often suggested that the work of E. P. Thomson played a pivotal role in shaping South African historical writing and provided the foundations for a new school of social history. Thompson's writings – often refracted through many other texts – were one influence amongst many. This article, drawing on my own experiences of key moments of individuals and institutions, argues that the decisive and central role that is ascribed to his work does not accord with much more complex and localised realities. The article touches on numerous other influences that shaped the research and writing of succeeding cohorts of historians. It also suggests that while The Poverty of Theory was an influential publication, it did not initiate new forms of research and writing, but rather contributed to debates that were already well underway. In conclusion, the usefulness of the category of social history is disputed, as in the South African context it lends to a lazy lumping together of a very diverse selection of historians and needs to be rethought or replaced.

Keywords

South AfricaSouthern Africahistoriographyoral sourceslocal historybiography
Type
JAH Forum: E. P. Thompson in African History
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 58 , Issue 1 , March 2017 , pp. 3 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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Footnotes

*

Patrick Harries provided me with valuable insights while I was drafting this article, but his tragic death in 2016 means that I am not able to thank him for his help in person. He will be sorely missed. He was a fine, innovative historian who showed great intellectual and personal generosity to both his peers and his students. Author's email: peter.delius@wits.ac.za

References

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3 See, for example, K. Breckenridge, ‘Hopeless entanglement: a short history of the humanities in South Africa’, American Historical Review, October (2015).

4 S. Sparks and K. Breckenridge, call for papers for ‘History after E. P. Thompson’ workshop at the University of Michigan, Nov. 2015, submitted on Wits website, (http://wiser.wits.ac.za/event/history-after-ep-thompson), 16. Mar 2015.

5 Keith Breckenridge and Stephen Sparks, who suggested I sketch my own intellectual history as a paper for the ‘History after E. P. Thompson’ workshop, must take most of the blame for this autobiographical turn.

6 Bozzoli, B. and Delius, P., ‘Editors’ Introduction’, Radical History Review, 46/47 (1990)Google Scholar; for other accounts focused on the period covered by this article and written at this time, see Marks, S. ‘The historiography of South Africa’, in Jewsiewicki, B. and Newbury, D. (eds.), African Historiography (Beverly Hills, 1986)Google Scholar; and Saunders, C., The Making of the South African Past (Cape Town, 1988)Google Scholar. The unwary reader should be warned that the Radical History special issue, especially our Introduction and Bozzoli's chapter, ‘Intellectuals, audiences and histories’ received a very critical reception indeed. See, for example, the South African Historical Journal (1991).

7 Oliver, R. and Fage, J., A Short History of Africa (London, 1988 [orig. pub. 1962])Google Scholar was a pioneering work that sold in considerable numbers through multiple editions, while Fage, J. and Oliver, R. (eds.), Cambridge History of Africa, in Volume XIII (Cambridge, 1976–1988)Google Scholar represented a more comprehensive summation of the burgeoning historical work.

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16 Atmore, A. and Marks, S., ‘The imperial factor in South Africa: towards a reassessment’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 3 (1974)CrossRefGoogle Scholar was very influential for my generation of historians.

17 P. Delius, ‘Introduction: the Pedi Polity under Sekwati and Sekhukhune, 1820–1880’ (unpublished PhD thesis, London University, 1980).

18 Ibid .

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21 Hindess, B. and Hirst, P., Precapitalist Modes of Production (London, 1975)Google Scholar.

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23 See P. Delius, ‘Abel Erasmus: Power and profit in the eastern Transvaal’, and Trapido, S., ‘A history of tenant production on the Vereeniging estates 1896–1920’, in Beinart, W., Delius, P., and Trapido, S. (eds.), Putting a Plough to the Ground (Johannesburg, 1986)Google Scholar.

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25 Peires, J., The House of Phalo (Ravan, 1981)Google Scholar.

26 Beinart, W., The Political Economy of Pondoland (Cambridge, 1982)Google Scholar.

27 Delius, P., The Land Belongs to Us (Johannesburg, London and Berkeley, 1983/1984)Google Scholar; Delius, Lion amongst the Cattle, 229–36.

28 See Bozzoli and Delius, ‘Introduction’, Radical History Review, for a brief description of, and bibliography for this group.

29 For a fuller discussion of these issues, see Delius, P. and Schirmer, S., ‘Historical research and policy making in South Africa’, African Studies, 59:1 (2000), 5–7 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 For the results of this immersion see Delius, P., The Land Belongs to Us (Johannesburg, London and Berkeley (1983/1984)Google Scholar.

31 Beinart, The Political Economy of Pondoland; Ranger, T. O., ‘Growing from the roots, reflections on peasant research in Central and Southern Africa’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 5 (1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cooper, F., ‘Peasants, capitalists and historians’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 7 (1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 Beinart, Delius, and Trapido (eds.), Putting a Plough to the Ground.

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34 Bozzoli and Delius, ‘Introduction’, Radical History Review.

35 Bozzoli, B., Labour Townships and Protest (Johannesburg, 1979)Google Scholar; Bozzoli, B., Town and Countryside in the Transvaal (Johannesburg, 1983)Google Scholar; Bozzoli, B., Class Community and Conflict (Johannesburg, 1987)Google Scholar.

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37 Philip Bonner was unusual in that he worked on both precolonial and more modern urban history. His involvement in the independent trade union movement strongly influenced his work and interests at this time.

38 Webster, E., Cast in a Racial Mould: Trade unionism and the Foundries (Johannesburg, 1985)Google Scholar gives some sense of his interests at the time.

39 Lodge, T., Black Politics in South Africa since 1945 (Johannesburg, 1983)Google Scholar.

40 Thompson, E. P., The Making of the English Working Class (London, 1963), 12 Google Scholar.

41 Posel, D., The Making of Apartheid (Oxford, 1991)Google Scholar; Hofmeyr, I., We Spend our Years as a Tale that is told: Oral Historical Narrative in a South African Chiefdom (London, 1994)Google Scholar.

42 Hyslop, J., The Classroom Struggle: Policy and Resistance in South Africa, 1940–1990 (Pietermaritzburg, 1990)Google Scholar. The above list of people and publications is far from complete. It is simply intended to give some sense of the interests of a range of people who were involved in the workshop in the 1980s and early 1990s.

43 It would also be a mistake to imagine that Belinda and Charles were always in full intellectual agreement!

44 For an especially egregious example of this approach, see Minkley, G. and Rassol., C. ‘Orality, memory and social history in South Africa’, in Nuttall, S. and Coetzee, C. (eds.), Negotiating the Past: The Making of Memory in South Africa (Cape Townn, 1988)Google Scholar.

45 Quoted in Bonner, ‘Keynote address’, 16.

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53 Harries, P., Work, Culture and Identity (London, 1994)Google Scholar.

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55 Thompson, E. P., The Poverty of Theory and Other Essays (London, 1978)Google Scholar.

56 Cooper, F., ‘Work, class and empire: an African historian's retrospective on E. P. Thompson’, Social History, 20:2 (1995), 237 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57 van Onselen, C., Studies in the Social and Economic History of the Witwatersand 1886–1914: New Babylon (Johannesburg, 1982), 196 Google Scholar.

58 Atkins, K. E., The Moon Is Dead! Give Us Our Money! The Cultural Origins of an African Work Ethic, Natal, South Africa, 1843–1900 (London, 1993)Google Scholar; Cooper, ‘Work, class and empire’, 236.

59 Moodie, T. Dunbar, ‘The moral economy of the black miners’ strike of 1946’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 13 (1986)Google Scholar; personal communication with Patrick Harries, Sept. 2015 and Harries, Work, Culture, and Identity.

60 Thompson, E. P., Whigs and Hunters: The Origin of the Black Act (New York, 1975)Google Scholar; personal communication with W. Beinart, Oct. 2015; S. Trapido, ‘Poachers, proletarians and gentry in the early twentieth-century Transvaal’, unpublished paper given at the African Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, 1984.