About the Book
Originally published in 1979, this book examines differing forms of international, interracial working- class action and the relationship between workers’ struggles in the periphery and those in advanced capitalist countries. It analyses the nature of class alliances forged in the countryside and the urban sprawls of the developing world among workers, students and the unemployed. The volume draws on theoretical debates and detailed empirical studies dealing with a wide range of countries in Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Caribbean. Each of the sections is preceded by a linking editorial comment and the editors also provide an introductory overview.
Reviews of the original edition of Peasants and Proletarians:
‘This is an important book both for historians and for social scientists. It draws attention to a previously underestimated labour force that has grown into a significant – indeed, indispensable – part of the international economic structure.’ Lynda Shaffer, Journal of Asian Studies, 39 (4) 1980.
‘This book offers a truly impressive and solid compilation of material on labour in the Third World. The sheer range of scholarship concerning many different types of workers over a timescale of nearly I00 years in countries and political situations as various, for example, as Lagos in the I890s, Jamaica in the 1930s, and socialist Algeria or Chile under Allende, is sometimes bewildering, but never fails to stimulate and absorb the reader.’ Paul Kennedy, Journal of Modern African Studies, 19 (4) 1981.
‘Peasants and Proletarians is a very major contribution. The editors' introduction, though brief, successfully raises many of these issues and outlines an approach to them…The twenty-one readings, concerned with early forms of resistance, rural workers, strategies of working-class action, migrant workers in advanced capitalist states, and contemporary struggles, offer geographical and intellectual breadth in their exploration of the diversity of Third World experience.’ Joel Samoff, ASA Review of Books, Vol. 6, 1980.
Table of Contents:
Part 1: Early Forms of Resistance 1. The Origins of the Chilean Labor Movement Alan Angell 2. The May Thirtieth Movement in Shanghai Jean Chesneaux 3. Historical Background and Beginnings of the Mexican Labor Movement Before The Revolution of 1910 M. R. Clark 5. The Lagos Strike of 1897: An Exploration in Nigerian Labor History A. G. Hopkins 6. Worker Consciousness in Black Miners: South Rhodesia, 1900-1920 Charles van Onselen Part 2: Workers on the Land 7. Rural Women’s Subsistence Production in the Capitalist Periphery Carmen Diana Deere 8. From Peasants to Miners: The Background to Strikes in the Mines of Peru Josh DeWind 9. The Rural Proletariat and the Problem of the Rural Proletarian Consciousness Sidney W. Mintz 10. The Politics of Protest in Jamaica, 1938: Some Problems of Analysis and Conceptualization K. W. J. Post Part 3: Strategies of Working-Class Action 11. Workers and Managers in Algeria Ian Clegg 12. The Political Impact of Strikes and Disorder in Ceylon Robert N. Kearney 13. The Alliance of Peasants and Workers: Some Problems Concerning the Articulation of Classes (Algeria and China). K. W. J. Post 14. Politics and Organized Labor in India E. A. Ramaswamy Part 4: Migrant Workers and Advanced Capitalism 15. Prisoners in Exile: Senegalese Workers in France Adrian Adams 16. Colonial Labor and Theories of Inequality: The Case of International Harvester Mario Barrera 17. Immigrant Workers and Class Struggles in Advanced Capitalism: The Western European Experience Manuel Castells 19. Contract Labor in U.S. Agriculture: The West Indian Cane Cutters in Florida Josh DeWind, Tom Seidl, and Janet Shenk Part 5: Contemporary Struggles 20. The Durban Strikes: South Africa 1973 Institute for Industrial Education 21. Industrial Protest in Nigeria Adrian Peace 22. Class Consciousness Among Working-Class Women in Latin America: A Case Study in Puerto Rico Helen Icken Safa 22. Trade-Union Action and Political Behavior of the Chilean Miners of Chuquicamata Francisco S. Zapata.
About the Author :
Robin Cohen is Emeritus Professor of Development Studies at the University of Oxford. For the first decade of his academic career, he worked on comparative labour issues. His books included Labour and Politics in Nigeria (1974) and the co-edited collections The development of an African working class (1975), International Labour and the Third World (1987), African Labor History (1978) and the current title, Peasants and Proletarians. He subsequently wrote on the themes of migration, globalization and diasporas. His best-known work is Global diasporas: An introduction (3rd edition, 2022).
Peter Gutkind was a distinguished social anthropologist (and a noted pioneer in the field of urban anthropology) who was associated with the Department of Anthropology at the University of Warwick from 1986 until his death in 2001. He was Professor of Anthropology at McGill University for the majority of his career and President of the African Studies Association in the USA.
Phyllis Brazier completed an MA at Warwick University and worked in the voluntary sector, NHS and education. She continues to be active in the community against racism and in support of human rights.
Review :
‘This is an important book both for historians and for social scientists. It draws attention to a previously underestimated labour force that has grown into a significant – indeed, indispensable – part of the international economic structure.’ Lynda Shaffer, Journal of Asian Studies, 39 (4) 1980.
‘This book offers a truly impressive and solid compilation of material on labour in the Third World. The sheer range of scholarship concerning many different types of workers over a timescale of nearly I00 years in countries and political situations as various, for example, as Lagos in the I890s, Jamaica in the 1930s, and socialist Algeria or Chile under Allende, is sometimes bewildering, but never fails to stimulate and absorb the reader.’ Paul Kennedy, Journal of Modern African Studies, 19 (4) 1981.
‘Peasants and Proletarians is a very major contribution. The editors' introduction, though brief, successfully raises many of these issues and outlines an approach to them…The twenty-one readings, concerned with early forms of resistance, rural workers, strategies of working-class action, migrant workers in advanced capitalist states, and contemporary struggles, offer geographical and intellectual breadth in their exploration of the diversity of Third World experience.’ Joel Samoff, ASA Review of Books, Vol. 6, 1980.
