E. P. Thompson (1924–1993)

This review will inevitably be slight and unworthy of its subject, as I am hungry and want to go home and eat supper. Moreover, there is so much to this book that I hardly know where to start. Perhaps this is its greatest strength - it shows a diversity of experiences and details many geographically specific events, building up a fascinating picture of England from 1794 to 1832. I was delighted to discover how much revolutionary sentiment and upheaval took place during the period, as my show more fascination with the French Revolution stems in part from disappointment at the UK’s more stolid political history. Thompson does talk at times of the reasons why there wasn’t a revolution in England, despite the strong potential for one at times. Geography seems to have played a part: Paris was at the centre of France economically and administratively, as well as in location. London could not claim quite the same; the areas undergoing greatest economic transformation were around Yorkshire. London’s economy and underground political opposition was highly fragmented, struggling to communicate with radical organisations further north. (All that is gross oversimplification, of course.)

Out of the whole book, I would pick the account of Luddism (which I previously knew very little about) as a highlight. The exciting story is told, whilst retaining the caution that historians still know relatively little about how the movement worked. Its antecedents and implications are explored in a really compelling fashion. In fact, considering the length, this is a highly readable book. I now feel much better informed about the heterogenous nature of the Industrial Revolution and efforts to agitate and unionise in response to its cruelties. Although some specific figures are profiled, the book avoids the dangerous trap of ‘Great Man’ history, of concentrating on a few people as personifications of events. That is clearly inappropriate when the history of class formation is being told.

I also appreciated Thompson ending on this note, which still rings all too true:

'Class also acquired a peculiar resonance in English life: everything, from their schools to their shops, their chapels to their amusements, was turned into a battleground of class. The marks of this still remain, but by the outsider they are not always understood.'

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E.P. Thompson's Witness Against the Beast is a wonderful piece of history and criticism. Its subtitle "William Blake and the Moral Law" might have more accurately been "William Blake Against the Moral Law," since that is the position expressed in Blake's works. Thompson points the fact out again and again, while noting the earlier critics who have managed to ignore it.

"Inheritance," the first of the book's two sections, paints a cultural backdrop for Blake in the world of English antinomian show more religion. The second "Human Images" treats Blake's biography and works in relation to that tradition and to the Republican and Deist impulses of the late eighteenth century. Thompson focuses on the Songs of Innocence and Experience, with some attention to The Marriage of Heaven and Hell and comissioned paintings. He is very sympathetic to Blake, and avers himself to be a "Muggletonian Marxist" (the first term referencing an antinomian sect which may have influenced Blake through his family). At the same time, he seems careful not to project his own ideas onto Blake -- much more careful than most Blake critics of my reading -- and not to rashly infer lines of influence or authorial intentions.

The fifteen black and white plates in the book are very well chosen. In the course of illustrating Thompson's points, they also make up one of the best possible collections of Blake's images on such a small scale. show less

You know how sometimes, reading a book changes one's view of life? Perhaps, it would be more accurate to say that it alters one's perspective. Whichever, this is one of those books.

The period covered by our tale is largely from 1792 to 1832. A brief overview as to the lie of the land and how we got there prior to this time span is given and an even briefer afterword about the effects upon later history are included, but these crucial forty years are the main target. Every writer, and every show more reader, has their slant upon history - particularly when it contains a political aspect. E.P. Thompson makes no secret of his position but, at the same time, he tries (and, in my opinion succeeds), in steering a history based passage through a time of great upheaval. This is evidenced by the criticisms which one is able to read of the book: some complain that his left wing bias is too evident whilst others bemoan the loss of an opportunity to write the socialist position more sympathetically. What I particularly like about the work is that it ties historical events, such as the Peterloo Massacre, into a comprehensible continuum and explained why the upper classes, who apparently held all the cards, should hand power to the masses.

When I was a schoolboy, this was explained to me as a philanthropic act of a bunch of chaps who were pretty decent really (the names Cadbury, Lever and Wilberforce being predominant in the proving thereof). This generosity, whilst largely true in the case of the aforementioned, and a few others, never seemed a sufficient explanation. Were this book to be made compulsory reading for every schoolchild in the United Kingdom, a better understanding as to how we got to where we are today might accrue. It is only with this knowledge that we can look to move forward to a better future: was it not one of the great capitalists who said, " Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."?

Even if your grasp on English history is far greater than mine, I would still urge that you read this book; it will not disappoint! show less

I guess I will quip, since no one else has, that a post-structuralist is someone who tries to take the "human" out of the humanities, and thus isn't left with much. While it's a pleasure to read E.P. Thompson, it's a melancholy one. Structuralism and post-structuralism overran academics in capitalist societies like a scourge for the next 30 years after the titular essay was written, all the while actually existing socialism was decaying and collapsing under relentless assault from without show more and within. So Thompson's humane faith in the historical process as something which is open-ended, evolving and made consciously by actual human beings is like hearing a voice speaking from the grave. show less