A history of the barricade


Eric Hazan, Verso, hardback, 128 pages, £9.99


In the history of European revolutions, the barricade is a glorious emblem. Its symbolic importance arises principally from the barricades of Eric Hazan’s native Paris where they were instrumental in the revolts of the nineteenth century.


The barricade was always a makeshift construction and, in working-class districts, these ersatz fortifications could spread like wildfire and served as an offensive tactic in narrow city streets, enmeshing the forces of repression. They doubled as a stage, from which insurgents could harangue soldiers and subvert their allegiance. Their symbolic power persisted into May 1968 and, more recently, the Occupy movements.


Barricades are by their nature impermanent and hard to pin down, but Hazan writes with passion about their role.


“In this symbolic form of popular revolt we find across the centuries the same material elements, or nearly so — youngsters, stallholders, workers, students, defending their streets, their district, their way of life against forces that are always superior in both numbers and weapons … Behind the paving stones, rifles and flags, it is these heroes and heroines that I have tried to bring back to life.”


Reviews contributed by the Bookmarks socialist bookshop.


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