Making History: Writings on History and Culture [Hardcover]

E. P. Thompson (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1565842162 | ISBN-13: 978-1565842168 | Publication Date: December 1, 1994

Bringing together E. P. Thompson's writings and lectures delivered over a number of years, Making History covers the key debates in history and cultural theory that occupied Thompson throughout his career.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The point of history, according to the late English historian Thompson, is to "reconstruct the forgotten norms, decode the obsolete rituals and detect the hidden gesture," and for him that meant social history. The chronicling of wars and the actions of the ruling class interested him much less than the customs, folklore, practices and popular culture of nations, above all England. He was drawn to the plight of women and of the common people, particularly to the English working class, which he attempted to rescue from "the condescension of posterity." In his view, history should be told from the bottom up rather than from the top down. But to dismiss him as a revisionist, left-wing historian would be unfair. He was too humane and multifaceted for that, and he found the theoretical arguments of Marxists boring, their concern with class tedious. Historical materialism and power relationships may not be the only lenses through which to view events. Whether he was reviewing the books of other historians such as Linda Colley or Herbert Gutman, or analyzing the contributions of Tom Maguire, Eleanor Marx, William Morris or Mary Wollstonecraft ("one of the greatest of Englishwomen"), Thompson wrote with a controlling integrity as well as great spirit. And he always delivered the long view, not pressing his nose "too close against the windowpane" but earnestly trying to stand back far enough to see the entire picture.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From Booklist

As a tool of historical analysis, Marx's theories can be used as a scalpel or a meat cleaver; Thompson, perhaps best known for The Making of the English Working Class (1966), always wielded them as a scalpel. Though he can no longer dash off letters to editors or lead Committee for Nuclear Disarmament marchers past U.S. air force bases in Europe, thanks to his executors, Thompson continues to shed light and strike sparks from beyond the grave. Making History--published in England by Merlin Press as Persons & Polemics--consists of 20 historical and review essays published over the past three decades in journals like Dissent, The Times Literary Supplement, and the London Review of Books. Subjects include Mary Wollstonecraft, Eleanor Marx, Tom Maguire, William Morris, Peterloo, and the British family. The volume closes with a long poem, "Powers and Names," and a brief essay, "Agenda for Radical History." Two more Thompson books are in the works: a collection of essays on the English Romantics; and an "original and unexpected study," claims the publisher, "of the relationship between Native Americans and the Privy Council in the seventeenth century." A demanding but rewarding collection; appropriate for larger British history collections. Mary Carroll

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: New Press, The (December 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565842162
• ISBN-13: 978-1565842168
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,360,992 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)