Black Marxism and the English working class

Cardwell, Emma (2024) Black Marxism and the English working class. Race and Class. ISSN 0306-3968 (In Press)

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Abstract

This article engages with the theoretical contributions of Cedric Robinson’s book Black Marxism by arguing that racialised differentiation played an important role in capitalism’s emergence in England. Drawing on the methodologies of critical historiography used by Robinson in Black Marxism, the author discusses how the medieval social order in England was marked by both colonialism and racialism, and the dynamics of these fundamentally influenced the development of agrarian capitalism. She argues that in the context of developments in English historical knowledge since Black Marxism was published, fresh applications of Robinson’s theoretical and methodological approach to English historiography give important new insights into the emergence of capitalist social relations. For, as Robinson points out, the destruction of the past and the rewriting of history is a fundamental part of the creation of the other, and the endeavour of racial capitalism. Rescuing history from national myth is an important political and emancipatory act, which Robinson’s approach empowers us to undertake.