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The Making of the English Working Class

by E. P. Thompson (Author)
4.1 out of 5 stars 31 customer reviews
ISBN-13: 978-0394703220
ISBN-10: 0394703227
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 864 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage (February 12, 1966)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0394703227
  • ISBN-13: 978-0394703220
  • Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 2.9 x 9.4 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #78,531 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsA classic full of sympathy with the losers of the first Indu
By R. W. Holsbergen on September 25, 2000
Format: Paperback
strial revolution.
E.P. Thompson's magnum opus is a real classic. No serious student of social history should omit reading it! As a history student, I had read it more than 25 years ago. When I reread large parts of it, recently, I noticed - with the life experience acquired since that time - that the book is an even finer gem than I remembered.
It is clear that the author shows a certain bias in favour of the "losers" of the first Industrial Revolution: the English artisans in the textile trade, who in the late 18th and early 19th century were being reduced to the position of factory workers condemned to work under appalling conditions. But this bias does not substract anything from the worth of this study. On the contrary, such bias, or rather such sympathy towards the groups the author focuses on, is probably necessary to motivate a historian in examining his subject in such detail and writing such a full report about the activities of Jacobites, Luddites, Owenites, Chartists and all the other groups who did not accept the oppressing social and economic order of their time. Of course, such sympathy (or bias) should be kept in check by professional rigour, which is certainly the case in profesor Thompson's magnificent study.
The author persuasively argues that, during the generation between 1815 and 1848, England had come much closer to a Revolution of the kind France had gone through between 1789 and 1794, than the "Whig Interpretation of History" would make us believe.
Some of Thompson's assertions are not beyond dispute. He claims, for instance, that the position of the English poor had definitely deteriorated compared to the 18th century. It has been convincingly shown that their position was already dismal long before the Industrial Revolution started.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsA Classic in the Field of Social and Labor History
By S. Pactor on December 27, 2003
Format: Paperback
Well, it took me darn near a month to finish this monster (800+ pages) of a book. Can't say I regret the experience, though. Truly , this is a masterpiece, both in terms of its substance and its approach. I could quite easily write more then a thousand words on this book, but hey, this is Amazon, right?
Before I begin, I would like to state up front that I am not a historian or a graduate student of history. Please forgive me if my review contains incorrect statements.
"The Making of the English Working Class" is precisely what its (awkward) title describes: a history of the developments leading to the emergence of the modern industrial working class in England (and Scotland, sort of. Wales and Ireland are excluded, although Irish immigrants living in England to figure in some parts of the book). The time period covered is roughly the 1790's to the 1840's. Thompson starts with a description of "Dissent", discusses the influence of the French Revolution on that tradition (Dissent), spends a good chunk of the book describing the effect of the industrial revolution on the lives and lifestyles of the workers in industrial England, and then spends an equal amount of time describing the reaction of the workers and their leaders to this adjustment in circumstances.
Along the way, Thompson takes a hatchet to historians on the left, right, and center. His section on the change in circumstances of the workers in England is most critical of writers like F.A. Hayek, i.e. those writers who try to say that the industrial revolution "wasn't that bad" or "wasn't bad at all" for the workers. He devotes a good part of Part II of the book to attacking the methods of statistical or economic history.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsCorrection to inanity of other reviews
By P. Landau on December 19, 2001
Format: Paperback
Thompson's book is THE ground-breaking work of social history for our century, pioneering in the "history of everyday life" (also taken up by Foucault, de Certeau, Davis, etc.); the history of working people; and the consideration of culture in the past. Unlike most other social history it is also brilliantly written and accessible. Buy it.
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5.0 out of 5 starsLiterary as well as historical classic
By Adrian Walker on April 20, 2000
Format: Paperback
This is an extraordinary book and still hold its power to suprise and challenge the reader. Its structure would suggest that its really a series of essays each of which uses some remarkable research. However such a perspective would not do justice to its underlying thesis -that the English working class was not the sterile output of economic forces but actively engaged through aspiration and struggle in its own making. This is the essential thread of the book and as such constitutes a challenge not only to traditional top down theories, but also to mechanist or 'vulgar ' marxist accounts. Yet leaving aside its value stance it is a masterpiece of writing. The attack of Thompsons style could be a pleasure even to those who may not share his persuasions and there is no question that he makes history live in a way only the greatest of historians can. The book does suffer from considerable faults. While Thompson does an effective demolition on the quantative/systemic school of historians this does not justify the shortage of figures.As Perry Anderson has pointed out we do not know much about the size of the working class by the end of the book. Additionally Thompson is sometimes led astray by his own talent for metaphor or the telling phrase Famously he does this in the chapter 'The Redeeming Power of the Cross' with his characterisation of certain hymn texts as 'psychic masturbation'.
Whatever the limitations of the book they are overwhelmed by its originality and its capability to stimulate thought. It is well worth purchase.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

A classic work of history.

Published 1 month ago by TurtleyTurtle
5.0 out of 5 starsLabor, social, and political history was all new ...

Labor, social, and political history was all new to me. Must read. It will help fill in a big blank area of your historical knowledge.

Published 5 months ago by george j davis
1.0 out of 5 starsOne Star

the book literally fell apart in my hands

Published 6 months ago by 15
5.0 out of 5 starsAmong the finest works of history in the English language

Among the finest works of history in the English language. Yes...that good. Long ago, I read the first translation of Lukacs' "History and Class Consciousness". Read more

Published 10 months ago by John Welch
1.0 out of 5 starsSucks

I have to say this is one of the worst books I've read in a long time. Extremely boring and full of irrelevant details. I'm pissed that I wasted money on this. Read more

Published 11 months ago by Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 starsMust read

Essential reading for the historiography of the history profession. This is a well referenced work.

Published 13 months ago by Karl Krotke
5.0 out of 5 starsNonpareil

*The Making of the English Working Class* is an astounding book of truly modern history. E.P. Thompson goes to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in Britain -- the period... Read more

Published 17 months ago by Jeffrey Rubard
5.0 out of 5 starsLook no Further

This is Thompson's classic work written many years ago. It is thorough and full of all, and almost everything, a study of this subject would require. Read more

Published 22 months ago by Observer
5.0 out of 5 starsThompson was a superior kind of historian

Thompson was a superior kind of historian. This book explains in detail how the working class emerged from the hinterlands of the Industrial revolution to be come a force that... Read more

Published on November 22, 2014 by Ronnie Bennett-Bray
4.0 out of 5 starsFour Stars

A classic of its time by an eminent English Marxist.

Published on November 11, 2014 by The Conscience of Zeno

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