 First paperback edition,featuring a detail from a 19th-centuryaquatint by R. D. Havell. In the background,John Blenkinsop's locomotive can be seen. | |
| Author | E. P. Thompson |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | Labour history Social history |
| Publisher | Victor Gollancz Ltd Vintage Books |
Publication date | 1963, 1968 (rev. ed.), 1980 (new preface) |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Print (hardcover &paperback) |
| Pages | 848 |
| ISBN | 0-14-013603-7 |
| OCLC | 29894851 |
The Making of the English Working Class is a work of Englishsocial history written byE. P. Thompson, aNew Left historian. It was first published in 1963 byVictor Gollancz Ltd, and republished in revised form in 1968 by Pelican, after which it became an earlyOpen University set book. It concentrates on Englishartisan andworking-class society "in its formative years 1780 to 1832".[1][2][3]
It was placed 30th in theModern Library 100 Best Nonfiction books of the 20th century.[4]
In the preface, Thompson said of his aims: "I am seeking to rescue the poor stockinger, theLuddite cropper, the 'obsolete' hand-loom weaver, the 'utopian' artisan, and even the deluded follower ofJoanna Southcott, from the enormous condescension of posterity."[5]: 12 Thompson uses ahumanist approach to social history, being critical of those who turn the people of the working class into an inhuman statistical bloc.[attribution needed] Thompson wished to disassociateMarxism fromStalinism, and added humanistic principles to the book as a way of steering theleft towardsdemocratic socialism, as opposed tototalitarianism.[1][failed verification]
Thompson expounds upon his theories on working-class consciousness, which he says are manifested by values of solidarity, collectivism, mutuality, political radicalism and Methodism.[1] Thompson uses the term "working class", rather than "classes", throughout the book to emphasize the growth of a working-class consciousness. He claims in the Preface that "in the years between 1780 and 1832 most English working people came to feel an identity of interests as between themselves, and as against other men whose interests are different from (and usually opposed to) theirs".[5]: 11 This change in consciousness is described in Thompson's 1975 book on the 1723Waltham Black Act.[6]
In the book, Thompson discusses popular movements of the past, such asJacobin societies like theLondon Corresponding Society, and attempts to recreate the life experience of the working class.[5]: 11 Thompson also re-evaluates theLuddite movement and the influence of the earlyMethodist movement on working-class aspirations. (Thompson's parents were Methodist missionaries.)[citation needed]
Sidney Pollard called the book "without a doubt, a landmark in English historiography".[7]: 574 Robert K. Webb called it "both very important and extremely exasperating".[7]: 574 David Eastwood argued that it "transformed the study of labour, class and political radicalism in Britain and America and is incontestably the single most influential work of history of the post-war period".[8]: 65
Geoffrey Best called it a "valuable and exciting book" but noted Thompson's neglect of the "flag-saluting, foreigner-hating, peer-respecting side of the plebeian mind" and asked, "How large a portion of 'the working class' did those 'artisans' form from whom so much of his evidence necessarily comes, and of how many hundreds of thousands of lower-class folk do we remain so much more ignorant that we cannot speak as confidently about them?"[9]: 278
In April 2020,Jacobin magazine launched a podcast series,Casualties of History, focusing on the book.[10] In December 2023,BBC Radio 3 issued five episodes of its seriesThe Essay "reflecting on the legacy, ideas and personal inspiration of The Making of the English Working Class" to mark sixty years since its first publication.[11]
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