ABSTRACT
The term 'people's history' has had a long career, and covers an ensemble of different writings. Some of them have been informed by the idea of progress, some by cultural pessimism, some by technological humanism, as in those histories of 'everyday things' which were so popular in 1930s Britain. The 'people' of people's history have as many different shades of meaning as the term has usages. They are always majoritarian, but the connotations vary according to whether the pole of comparison is that of kings and commons, rich and poor; or the 'educated' and those whom Michelet called the 'simples'. Women's history in Britain is to a striking extent in the hands of, or strongly influenced by, Marxist-feminists, and Sheila Rowbotham's work has given some of its themes a mass readership. Left to itself, people's history can enclose itself in a locally defined totality where no alien forces intrude.
