Abstract
What are the methods and goals of radical history? How can Marxist historiography, charged with producing radical histories, contend with the postmodernist challenge that knowledge is always mediated, that only fragments are recoverable, not totalities? Working through concepts and methods associated with postcolonial literary studies and subaltern studies, the article analyzes a document in the British colonial archives from the time of the 1857 Revolt in India that challenges both nationalist and imperialist histories of its most famous rebel: Lakshmibai, queen of Jhansi. Understanding mediation and the limits of knowledge – the fissures and conflicts among colonial officials, the ambiguity of the queen’s intentions – are crucial to understanding this file, and the 1857 Revolt itself. But Marxist historiography must also link that text – mediated and complex as it is – to the world outside of the archive, and seek explanatory frameworks and adequate truths in the effort to produce radical histories.