ABSTRACT
The title of this series of lectures is taken from the well-known but largely unread book by George Lukács, History and Class Consciousness, a collection of studies published in 1923, strongly criticized within the Communist movement, and virtually unobtainable for some thirty or forty years thereafter. In fact, since no English version of it was in print until recently, it is still little more than a title to most people in this country. My task in this introductory lecture is, however, rather wider than that of providing a simple commentary or crib to Lukács's book. I want to reflect, as a historian, on the nature and role of class consciousness in history, on the assumption that we are all agreed about one basic proposition: that social classes, class conflict and class consciousness exist and play a role in history. We may well disagree on what role they play, or on its importance, but for the sake of the present argument further general agreement is not necessary. Nevertheless, in fairness both to the subject and to the thinker whose name is so obviously associated with it, I ought perhaps to begin by explaining where my own reflections connect with Lukács's own extremely interesting argument (which is, of course, derived from Marx) and where they do not.
