I’ve seen similar criticisms of Linebaugh’s The London Hanged; even reading that as a non-historian, I could tell I was being taken for a bit of a ride. But I also think it makes a useful point, and bring it up all the time.
If left-wing history is to exist at all, you have to give it somewhat of a pass for being looser and more novelistic, since records of the past are overwhelmingly created and preserved to serve the powerful.
As a case in point, I‘ve recently been reading Graeber and Wengrow’s The Dawn of Everything, which questions the whole concept of “equality”, and claims that the philosophy of the Enlightenment was boosted, not from slaves and pirates, but rather native American cultures. I do find this well-actually approach a bit grating – it feels like replacing one pat oversimplification with another – but I think the net effect is positive.
Obviously, billions of people and events don’t naturally boil down to any single “correct” narrative. The value of contrarian history is to show that these narratives are a tool that you pick up and use consciously. If you’re a background character in the story of the powerful, it’s equally true that they’re background characters in your story, and you can choose which framing is more useful for you.
(Which is not to say all stories are equally true. You can connect material facts in different ways, but you can’t ignore them or make them up)
