Jacques Rancière 
Proletarian Nights 
The Workers’ Dream in Nineteenth-Century France

Proletarian Nights, previously published in English as
Nights of Labor and one of Ranci�re’s most important works, 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, Ranci�re reveals the contradictory and conflicting stories that challenge the coherence of these statements celebrating labor.

This updated edition includes a new preface by the author, revisiting the work twenty years since its first publication in France.

About the author

Donald Reid is a professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His work focuses on French labour history and the history of collective memory in modern France.