Its publication in 1963 was highly controversial in academia, but the work has become one of the most influential social commentaries every written. Thompson’s magnum opus, The Making of the English Working Class defined early twentieth-century English social and economic history, leading many to consider him Britain’s greatest postwar historian. Crucial to contemporary trends in all aspects of society, at the turn of the nineteenth century, these workers united into the class that we recognize all across the Western world today. Despite their lack of power and the indignity forced upon them by the upper classes, the working class emerged as England’s greatest cultural and political force. But the capitalist elite did not form the working class-the workers shaped their own creations, developing a shared identity in the process. He died in 1993, survived by his wife and two sons.A seminal text on the history of the working class by one of the most important intellectuals of the twentieth century.ĭuring the formative years of the Industrial Revolution, English workers and artisans claimed a place in society that would shape the following centuries. Thompson was also an active campaigner and key figure in the ending of the Cold War. The Making of the English Working Class was instantly recognized as a classic on its publication in 1963 and secured his position as one of the leading social historians of his time. An academic, writer and acclaimed historian, his first major work was a biography of William Morris.
Thompson was born in 1924 and read history at Corpus Christi, Cambridge, graduating in 1946. Hobsbawm, Independent’An event not merely in the writing of English history but in the politics of our century’ Michael Foot, Times Literary Supplement’The greatest of our socialist historians’ Terry Eagleton, New StatesmanAbout the author:E. Ī moving account of the culture of the self-taught in an age of social and intellectual deprivation’ Asa Briggs, Financial Times’Thompson’s work combines passion and intellect, the gifts of the poet, the narrator and the analyst’ E. Reviews:’A dazzling vindication of the lives and aspirations of the then – and now once again – neglected culture of working-class England’ Martin Kettle, Observer’Superbly readable. Thompson shows how the working class took part in its own making and re-creates the whole-life experience of people who suffered loss of status and freedom, who underwent degradation, and who yet created a cultured and political consciousness of great vitality. Thompson’s magnum opus, The Making of the English Working Class defined early twentieth-century English social and economic history, leading many to consider him Britain’s greatest postwar historian. Thompson’s revolutionary account of working-class culture and ideals is published in Penguin Modern Classics, with a new introduction by historian Michael KennyThis classic and imaginative account of working-class society in its formative years, 1780 to 1832, revolutionized our understanding of English social history.Į.
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