Author(s): Sven Lindqvist

Politics | History

On the 45th anniversary of its initial publication in Swedish, Sven Lindqvist's polemic on history, politics and power is finally available in English for the first time.

This volume brings Dig Where You Stand, Sven Lindqvist's classic text on history, power and politics, to English-speaking audiences for the first time.

First published in 1978, Dig Where You Stand is a rallying cry for workers to become researchers, to follow the money, take on the role as experts on their job, and "dig" out its hidden histories in order to take a vital step towards social and economic transformation.

A how-to guide that inspired an entire movement, it makes the case that everyone - not just academics - can learn how to critically and rigorously explore history, especially their own history, and in doing so find a blueprint for how to transform society for the better.

In a world where the balance of power is overwhelmingly stacked against the working-class, Dig Where You Stand's manifesto for the empowerment of workers through self-education, historical research and political solidarity is as important and relevant today as it was in 1978.

Review: "This pioneering work is as relevant today as it was on first publication, as capital continues to unceasingly move around the world, desperate to avoid accountability for its disastrous social and environmental consequences."
"Sven Lindqvist's call to Dig Where You Stand has been a lasting inspiration for me, an influence leading me to combine international oral history in parallel with local community projects, revealing the amazing richness of the life stories which - once you learn to listen - you can discover right around you."
"This classic book is much more than a historic document. Its precious pages belong to our future. Dig Where You Stand is a practical primer which shows how we can change things for the better."
"A sharp reminder that we are in danger of losing the art of research, bamboozled by the sheer immediacy of what passes for information and data today. This book is a gift for new generations of radical activists who grasp exactly how much we have to change."
"Do not mistake this for an ordinary handbook or a dated analysis of working-class conditions. Lindqvist's book shows with vivid clarity how capitalism permeates society, our homes, lungs, and children's future. And yet, at the end, there is not despair and hopelessness but an empowering sense that things can and will be changed."
"Dig Where You Stand has long had mythic status as a self-help manual for oral and community historians. Though forty-four years after its first publication, its appearance today can hardly be more timely or relevant. It should be on every activist's bookshelf.'
Dig Where You Stand is a wonderful toolkit - a work of barefoot research - that shows us how to investigate our own jobs, communities and lives with one simple goal: social transformation.
Half a century old but still vivid, Dig Where You Stand is to be welcomed as a fearless and ambitious manual on how to live and think as well as research, write and make connections in an apparently disjointed time.
Half a century old but still vivid, Dig Where You Stand is to be welcomed as a fearless and ambitious manual on how to live and think as well as research, write and make connections in an apparently disjointed time.

Author Biography: Sven Lindqvist (1932-2019) was a prolific and award winning writer, journalist, historian and activist. He has been widely translated and among his most influential works to have appeared in English are Exterminate All the Brutes (1992), A History of Bombing (1999) and Terra Nullius (2005). Dr Andrew Flinn is a Reader in Archival Studies and Oral History at University College London and a member of the Raphael Samuel History Centre. Dr Astrid von Rosen is associate professor (docent) at the Department of Cultural Sciences, University of Gothenburg.