The Making of the English Working ClassA history of the common people and the Industrial Revolution: “A true masterpiece” and one of the Modern Library’s 100 Best Nonfiction Books of the twentieth century (Tribune). During the formative years of the Industrial Revolution, English workers and artisans claimed a place in society that would shape the following centuries. But the capitalist elite did not form the working class—the workers shaped their own creations, developing a shared identity in the process. 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. 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. E. P. 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. Its publication in 1963 was highly controversial in academia, but the work has become a seminal text on the history of the working class. It remains incredibly relevant to the social and economic issues of current times, with the Guardian saying upon the book’s fiftieth anniversary that it “continues to delight and inspire new readers.” |
Contents
1737 | |
1740 | |
1741 | |
1746 | |
1762 | |
The Freeborn Englishman | 1774 |
Planting the Liberty Tree | 1788 |
THE CURSE OF ADAM | |
The Rituals of Mutuality | |
The Irish | |
Myriads of Eternity | |
THE WORKINGGLASS PRESENCE XIII Radical Westminster | |
An Army of Redressers | |
The Black Lamp | |
The Opaque Society | |
The Laws against Combination | |
Exploitation | |
The Field Labourers | |
Artisans and Others | |
The Weavers | |
Standards and Experiences i Goods | |
Homes | |
Life | |
Childhood | |
The Transforming Power of the Cross i Moral Machinery | |
The Chiliasm of Despair XII Community | |
Leisure and Personal Relations | |
Croppers and Stockingers | |
Sherwood Lads | |
By Order of the Trade | |
Demagogues and Martyrs i Disaffection | |
Problems of Leadership iii Hampden Clubs | |
Brandreth and Oliver | |
Class Consciousness | |
Bibliographical Note | |
Acknowledgments | |
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Common terms and phrases
18th century agitation artisans Bamford Bill Birmingham Bolton Burdett Carlile Cartwright centres Chartist Church Cobbett Combination Acts Committee common constitutional cotton croppers delegates Despard Dissent districts early employed employers England English evidence factory Fitzwilliam framework-knitters Francis Place French Revolution Government H. W. C. Davis Halifax Hammonds Hampden Clubs hand hand-loom weavers History House Huddersfield Hunt Industrial Revolution Irish Jacobin John journeymen labour Lancashire leaders Leeds Mercury letter liberty London Lord Lord Sidmouth Luddism Luddites magistrates Manchester manufacturing masters meeting Methodist middle-class Midlands mills moral movement Nottingham organisation Owen Owenite Paine Paine's Parliament Peterloo Political Register poor popular power-loom Radical reformers reports revolutionary riots Sheffield shoemakers Sidmouth skilled social society Spitalfields stockingers Thelwall Thistlewood Thomas took towns trade union tradition trial villages wages West Riding Whig workers working-class wrote Yorkshire