Raphael Elkan Samuel (26 December 19349 December 1996) was a British

Marxist Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

historian, described by Stuart Hall as "one of the most outstanding, original intellectuals of his generation". He was professor of history at the

University of East London , mottoeng = Knowledge and the fulfilment of vows , established = 1898 – West Ham Technical Institute1952 – West Ham College of Technology1970 – North East London Polytechnic1989 – Polytechnic of East London ...

at the time of his death and also taught at

Ruskin College Ruskin College, originally known as Ruskin Hall, Oxford, is an independent educational institution in Oxford, England. It is not a college of Oxford University. It is named after the essayist, art and social critic John Ruskin (1819–1900) an ...

from 1962 until his death.

Life

Grave of Raphael Samuel in Highgate Cemetery

Samuel was born into a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family in London. His father, Barnett Samuel, was a solicitor and his mother, Minna Nerenstein, was at various times composer and partner in Jewish publishers Shapiro, Valentine. Samuel joined the

Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPG ...

when a teenager and left following the Soviet Union's invasion of Hungary in 1956. Samuel was awarded a scholarship to

Balliol College, Oxford Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the f ...

where he became a member of the

Communist Party Historians Group A subdivision of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), the Communist Party Historians Group (CPHG) formed a highly influential cluster of British Marxist historians, who contributed to " history from below" from 1946 to 1956. Famous member ...

, 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

Partisan Coffee House The Partisan Coffee House was a radical venue of the New Left, at 7 Carlisle Street in the Soho district of London. It was established by historian Raphael Samuel in 1958 in the aftermath of the Suez Crisis and the Soviet invasion of Hungary. It cl ...

in 1956 in

Soho, London Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was develo ...

, as a meeting place for the British New Left. He founded the

History Workshop The ''History Workshop Journal'' is a British academic history journal published by Oxford University Press. ''History Workshop'' was founded in 1976 by Raphael Samuel and others involved in the History Workshop movement. Originally sub-titled "A ...

movement at trade union connected

Ruskin College, Oxford Ruskin College, originally known as Ruskin Hall, Oxford, is an independent educational institution in Oxford, England. It is not a college of Oxford University. It is named after the essayist, art and social critic John Ruskin (1819–1900) an ...

. Samuel and the History Workshop movement powerfully influenced the development of the approach to historical research and writing commonly called "

history from below A people's history, or history from below, is a type of historical narrative which attempts to account for historical events from the perspective of common people rather than leaders. There is an emphasis on disenfranchised, the oppressed, the p ...

". In 1987 Samuel married the writer and critic

Alison Light Alison Light, (born 4 August 1955) is a writer, critic and independent scholar. She is the author of five books to date. In 2020 ''A Radical Romance'', was awarded the Pen Ackerley prize, the only prize for memoir in the UK. ''Common People: ...

. Samuel's archive is held at

Bishopsgate Library Bishopsgate Library is an independent, charity-funded library located within the Bishopsgate Institute in the City of London. Description The library's particular strengths include printed and archive material on London, freethought and the labo ...

. After Samuel's death in 1996, the East London History Centre of the

was renamed the Raphael Samuel History Centre, in honour of his role in creating it. The Centre was established to investigate and document the

history of London The history of London, the capita ...

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. Since September 2009 the Raphael Samuel Centre has been a partnership between the University of East London,

Birkbeck College Birkbeck, University of London (formally Birkbeck College, University of London), is a public university, public research university, located in Bloomsbury, London, England, and a constituent college, member institution of the federal Universit ...

and the

Bishopsgate Institute Bishopsgate Institute is a cultural institute in the Bishopsgate Without area of the City of London, located near Liverpool Street station and Spitalfields market. The institute was established in 1895. It offers a cultural events programme, c ...

. In an obituary in the journal ''

Radical Philosophy ''Radical Philosophy'' is a triannual peer-reviewed academic journal of critical theory and philosophy. It was established in 1972 with the purpose of providing a forum for the theoretical work which was emerging in the wake of the radical movement ...

'', Carolyn Steedman describes Samuel's work:

Like
Raymond Williams Raymond Henry Williams (31 August 1921 – 26 January 1988) was a Welsh socialist writer, academic, novelist and critic influential within the New Left and in wider culture. His writings on politics, culture, the media and literature contribu ...
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.Available online.
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Raphael Samuel was interred on the eastern side of

Highgate Cemetery Highgate Cemetery is a place of burial in north London, England. There are approximately 170,000 people buried in around 53,000 graves across the West and East Cemeteries. Highgate Cemetery is notable both for some of the people buried there as ...

Selected bibliography

* ''Village Life and Labour'' (1975) * ''Miners, Quarrymen and Saltworkers'' (1977) * ''People's History and Socialist Theory'' (1981) * ''East End Underworld'' (1981) * ''Culture, Ideology and Politics'' (1983) * ''Theatres of the Left: 1880–1935'' (1985) * ''The Lost World of Communism'' (1986) * ''The Enemy Within: The Miners' Strike of 1984'' (1987) * ''Patriotism: The Making and Unmaking of British National Identity'' (1989) * ''Patriotism (Volume 2): Minorities and Outsiders'' (1989) * ''The Myths We Live By'' (1990) * ''Theatres of Memory: Volume 1: Past and Present in Contemporary Culture'' (1994) * ''Theatres of Memory: Volume 2: Island Stories: Unravelling Britain'' (1997) * ''

The Lost World of British Communism ''The Lost World of British Communism'' is a book by Raphael Samuel first published, posthumously, in 2006 by Verso Books. Content The book is composed of a series of essays that were collected together to mark the ten year anniversary of Samuel's ...

'' (2006)

References

Sources

*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 Fitzroy Dearborn was an American publisher of academic library reference titles with offices in London and Chicago. It was acquired by Taylor & Francis as an imprint of Routledge Reference in 2002, before Taylor & Francis merged with Informa. At ...

, 1999, . *Thompson, Paul, "Raphael Samuel, 1934–96: An Appreciation", pages 30–37 from ''Oral History'', Volume 25, 1997.

External links

A short bio
for Raphael Samuel on Spartacus Educational
Profile
in ''

''
website of the Raphael Samuel History Centre"Samuel, Raphael Elkan (1934-1996) historian"
content description of Samuel's archive at

.
Raphael Samuel History Centre and Research at UEL
* Hilda Kean
"Remembering Raphael Samuel : Alison Light and A Radical Romance"
13 November 2019. * Alison Light
"Diary , The death of Raphael Samuel"
''

London Review of Books The ''London Review of Books'' (''LRB'') is a British literary magazine published twice monthly that features articles and essays on fiction and non-fiction subjects, which are usually structured as book reviews. History The ''London Review of ...

'', Vol. 23, No. 4, 22 February 2001. {{DEFAULTSORT:Samuel, Raphael 1934 births 1996 deaths 20th-century English historians Academics of Ruskin College Academics of the University of East London Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford Communist Party Historians Group members Burials at Highgate Cemetery Communist Party of Great Britain members English Jews English people of Belarusian-Jewish descent English people of Russian-Jewish descent Jewish socialists Marxist theorists