Theodore W. Allen and The Invention of the White Race

The Nights of Labor: The Workers' Dream in Nineteenth-Century France

Originally published in France in 1981, this first English translation of "Les Nuits des Proletaires" dramatically reinterprets the Revolution of 1830, contending that workers were not rebelling against specific hardships and conditions but against the unyielding predetermination of their lives. Through a study of worker-run newspapers, letters, journals, and worker-poetry, Ranciere reveals the contradictory and conflicting stories that challenge the coherence of these statements celebrating labor. Nineteenth-century workers sought out proletarian intellectuals, poets, and artists who were able to articulate their longings. At night, these worker-intellectuals gathered to write journals, poems, music, letters, and to discuss issues.