Maltese history enthusiasts packed a seventieth century hall at the FORTRESS BUILDERS Valletta for the launch of a new publication covering 1049 years of history during which young historian Mark Camilleri gave a public lecture on the subject. A Materialist Revision of Maltese History: 870 – 1919 is a new publication which offers a fresh look at one of the most intriguing periods of Maltese history. The book starts with the Arab conquests of Malta in 870, the arrival of the Normans of Malta, the Knights of St John, the French period, till 1919 when four Maltese were killed by British troops in Malta.
This publication poses new critical perspectives based on previously known and accepted historical data. Camilleri proposes a thorough revision of the entire span of how Maltese history had hitherto been interpreted and presented to the public. He is not entirely breaking new ground in doing so though he is the first to suggest such a revision on Hegelian/Marxist grounds. All of this is quite novel to the Maltese context. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of books have been written dealing with our history, both by professional and non-professional historians, and yet almost none of them have taken this perspective or suggested as much.
What prompted the author to cover such a vast period of history? “The new era which followed the 870 massacre with the emerging Muslim settlers was an era of misery, poverty and dependence. We have this very wrong idea that Maltese society was self-aware of its freedom, its identity and spirit and it thrived and grew progressively along the years, but the truth is very far away from this. During the years delineated in my study Maltese people were poor, miserable, highly dependent and submissive. Education was unheard of and the Maltese mind was controlled by the clerics. It was only in 1919 when the Maltese working-class began to be aware of its own freedoms and for the first time tried to overturn its objective living conditions out of its own spontaneous will.”
The book includes new primary sources which will be revealed for the first time, including the police logbooks of the early 20th century which shed new light on the social, economic and political history of Malta.
The new publication is selling at €15 from leading bookstores.