Samuel Raphael

Raphael Samuel

Raphael Samuel, the son of Jewish Communist parents, was born in London in 1934 and educated at King's Alfred's School and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he was taught by Christopher Hill.

Samuel became a member of the Communist Party and joined the Communist Party Historians' Group. He became a tutor at Ruskin College, Oxford, and in 1967 established the History Workshop movement. Whilst he left the Party, he remained very sympathetic to the personal factors that influenced individual choices about membership and resisted crude anti-communistic propaganda, remaining supportive and friendly with many Communists.

He also played a major role in the life of the History Workshop Journal that began publication in 1975. Raphael Samuel died of cancer on 9th December 1996. 

Pics: Right – Raph as a young man; below – in the 1980s

 

 

 

 

Books published by Samuel include:
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)
Patriotsm: Minorities and Outsiders (1989)
The Myths We Live By (1990)
Theatres of Memory (1996)
Island Stories: Unravelling Britain (1997)                                                                                                                          

 

below with Jean McCrindle in Trafalgar Square in 1956