Nights of Labor

Nights of Labor: The Workers Dream in Nineteenth Century France (La Nuit des prolétaires: Archives du rêve ouvrier) is a 1981 non-fiction book by Jacques Rancière,[1] which was based upon his doctoral thesis.[2] The book was re-released in 2012 by Verso under the title Proletarian Nights.

Nights of Labor: The Workers Dream in Nineteenth Century France
2012 Verso Press edition
AuthorJacques Rancière
Cover artistVan Gogh
Starry Night Over the Rhône - 1888
LanguageFrench
PublisherFayard (1981, French)
Temple University Press (1989)
Verso (2012)
Media typePrint
Pages448 pp
ISBN1844677788 (re-release)

Synopsis

The book collects a series of paraphrasing, quotations and summaries of worker writings that discuss a series of three experiments in worker association in mid-19th-century Paris. In the book Rancière looks at the beginnings of today's socialism and early proletarian class consciousness.

Reception

Labour/Le Travail praised the book, calling it "an important statement".[3] The American Historical Review wrote that the translation of the book was "excellent" and thought the foreword by Donald Reid was a highlight.[4] The Oral History Review stated that Nights of Labor was "a powerful, piercing, and radical argument".[5] The Journal of Modern History stated the book was "more a work of philosophical meditation than conventional historical analysis."[6] Spiked Magazine praised Rancière for not taking a "hero-centric view of history" but stated that the book was "a very dense text as Rancière, seemingly unwilling to interpret or even distil the great wealth of evidence he has uncovered, gives us it all".[7]

References
  1. Ross, Kristin (1991). "Rancière and the Practice of Equality". Social Text (29): 57–71. doi:10.2307/466299. JSTOR 466299.
  2. Davis, Oliver (2010). Jacques Rancière. Polity. p. 36. ISBN 978-0745646558.
  3. Palmer, Bryan D (Spring 1991). "The Nights of Labor: The Workers' Dream in Nineteenth-Century France". Labour/Le Travail. 27: 340–. doi:10.2307/25130285. JSTOR 25130285.
  4. Johnson, Christopher (June 1991). "The Nights of Labor: the Worker's Dream in Nineteenth-Century France". The American Historical Review. 96 (3): 886–887. doi:10.2307/2162521. JSTOR 2162521.
  5. Gerstle, Gary (Spring–Autumn 1992). "The Nights of Labor: The Workers' Dream in Nineteenth-Century France by Jacques Ranciere; John Drury". Oral History Review. 20 (1/2): 123–126. doi:10.1093/ohr/20.1.123. JSTOR 3674866.
  6. Chapman, Herrick (September 1993). "Reviewed work: Nascent Proletarians: Class Formation in Post-Revolutionary France, Michael P. Hanagan, Charles Tilly; the Nights of Labor: The Workers' Dream in Nineteenth-Century France, Jacques Rancière, John Drury, Donald Reid". Journal of Modern History. 65 (3): 627–630. doi:10.1086/244703. JSTOR 2124879.
  7. Heartfield, James. "Seeking salvation, behind society's back". Spiked Magazine. Retrieved 24 August 2012.
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