PRIMITIVE REBELS: by HOBSBAWM, E. J. [Eric John]; [HASKELL, Francis]: - 1959. Studies in Archaic Forms of Social Movement in the 19th and 20th Centuries.

Manchester: Manchester University Press., 1959.. First edition, first printing. Association copy, originally purchased in the year of publication by Francis Haskell, art historian and former pupil of Hobsbawm. Octavo. Publisher's original red-brown boards with titles in gilt to the spine, in dustwrapper. 208pp. Original bookseller's label for Bowes & Bowes of Cambridge to the front pastedown and with original receipt for the book dated 6/5/59 made out to F. Haskell of King's College loosely laid in. Italian journal article by Hobsbawm titled "Per lo studio delle classi subalterne" (1960, 14pp.) loosely laid in. A very good copy, the binding square and firm with some faint spotting to the boards. The contents with some faint toning to the endpapers, a light crease to the front free endpaper, and foxing to the top edge of the textblock, are otherwise clean and crisp throughout. The dustwrapper is in very good order with some dust-soiling and light spotting and a couple of small nicks to the head of the spine panel. Not price-clipped ("25s. net" to the front flap). The first edition of one of the influential Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm's (1917-2012) earliest works, exploring pre-modern European social movements and the concept of 'social banditry'.

Pleasingly, the present copy was purchased at the time of publication by the art historian Francis Haskell (1928-2000), whose own work focussed upon the social history of art, specifically the role of patronage, and who had originally studied under Hobsbawm at King's a few years earlier.