Ideology and Popular Protest

In this pathbreaking work originally published in 1980, the late George Rudé examines the role played by ideology in a wide range of popular rebellions in Europe and the Americas from the middle ages to the early twentieth century. Rudé was a champion of the role of working people in the making of history, and Ideology and Popular Protest was the first book devoted to the comparative study of popular political ideas and consciousness in both preindustrial cultures and the age of the Industrial Revolution. According to Rudé, the development of modern revolutionary struggles depended on a crucial merger of the culture and ideas of the common people with the radical ideologies of intellectuals. In a new foreword, Harvey Kaye reviews Rudé’s career as a pioneer in the critical study of social movements and highlights the enduring value of Ideology and Popular Protest as a classroom text.

George Rudé (1910–93) was professor emeritus of history at Concordia University and author of many books, including The Crowd in the French Revolution and Revolutionary Europe.

Harvey J. Kaye is Rosenberg Professor of Social Change and Development at the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay. His books include The British Marxist Historians and The Education of Desire: Marxists and the Writing of History.