The origins of the social war in South Yorkshire - a study of capitalist evolution and labour class realization in one industrial region c.1750-1855.

This study seeks to advance the possibility of producing 'total
history' in which the working or labour class assumes its rightful
place at the centre of interpreted action. This requires a practical
and intellectual approach that is inspired by the Marxist tradition.
In chronologically ordered chapters dealing with economic
realities (the organization and dynamics of an industrial economy
where cutlery, related metalware manufacture, linen making, coal.
mining and iron and steel manufacture were dominant) and the
realities of social conflict, the main focus remains on the latter.
The periodization which orders this study is of course artificial.
It derives a certain validity from the clustering of 'moments' in
the progress of working people in their popular and class struggles
with economic and political exploitation.
My main aim was to penetrate and evaluate the nature and levels
of labour class consciousness. The sources dictated that I only
encountered the consciousness of vanguard groups. My evaluation was
largely situational but it also shows an appreciation of the unity
of historical development created by the inheritance of traditions
and experiences, a process that is reinforced by persistent and
unyielding processes of economic conditioning.
This study mainly limits itself to what happened in one
industrial region. This and the 'situational.' approach restrict the
level of generalization. When more regional and town studies have
been attempted in a similar progress can be made towards higher
order generalizations. Hopefully my ideas and evidence concerning
'invisible exploitation', Methodist revivalism, the revolutionary
'underground', armed insurrection and its links with more recognizable
forms of constitutionalist struggle, the strength of organized
labour, trade union economism and the 'economic' and 'political'
labour aristocracies of the 1830's and 1840's may serve to
complement other people's work and stimulate positive (and critical)
reactions in the future.