Collective violence, in the form of popular protest, was one of the principal ways in which people resisted the expansion of capitalism and the state throughout the nineteenth century. The nature of this protest can be charted through three different, but related examples: grain riots across Europe in the first half of the century, the mythical figure of Captain Swing in England, and the Demoiselles of the Ariège in France. While these movements were ultimately repressed by the forces of capital and state power, they represented an attempt on the part of working people, the "remainders" of history, to impose an idea of popular justice.

Reading assignment:

Merriman, John. A History of Modern Europe: From the Renaissance to the Present, pp. 598-669