Over the past few episodes, we’ve been marking the 50th anniversary of the launch of History Workshop Journal. Currently celebrating the publication of its 100th issue, the journal was propelled by the spirit of the History Workshop movement, which held that history was inherently political, that its practice could and should be radical, and that in any case it was too important to be left to professional historians alone.
That movement in Britain had deep roots in the broad political landscape of the New Left, including the trades union movement, the movement for women’s and gay liberation, and anticolonial freedom struggles. But it also happened in sync with similar movements around the globe, which shared a parallel impulse to draw upon the historical imagination in arming themselves for present-day radical change.
In this conversation, chaired by Rosa Campbell, we discuss the global permutations of the History Workshop movement. Andrew Flinn and Astrid von Rosen explore the Dig Where you Stand movement in Sweden. Noor Nieftagodien reflects on the History Workshop at the University of Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg, South Africa. Hiro Matsubara describes a more recent public history experiment, Rekiken, launched by The Historical Science Society of Japan in 2024. In addition to taking part in this conversation, they also contribute essays to a special feature in HWJ 100 titled History Workshop Around the World, which also includes a discussion of the History Workshop movement in the US, written by Judith Walkowitz and Daniel Walkowitz.
