Edward Thompson, perhaps the greatest post-war historian in the English-speaking world, died in 1993. The histories reviewed in this book include a passionate biographical account of the late-19th-century Romantic William Morris, the acclaimed "The Making of the English Working Class" and a series of 18th-century studies that reach from customary culture to the antinomian poetics of William Blake. In reviewing the politics which gave shape to this historical work, this book assesses the role of Thompson's family background in India, his youth in the Communist Party, his decisive break with Stalinism in 1956, and his subsequent work campaigning for the causes of the new left and nuclear disarmament. Thompson was never comfortable in an academic milieu and eventually left formal teaching in the 1970s to devote his time to research and writing. His pen was always ready to bend against the powers of the state, and against a left he too often saw abandoning the cause of social transformation. Bryan Palmer is the author of "Descent into Discourse: The Reification of Language" and "The Writing of Social History".
- ISBN10 185984975X
- ISBN13 9781859849750
- Publish Date 26 September 1994
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 25 May 2001
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Verso Books
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 256
- Language English