MBB-2

Like a fair amount of academic history, especially older academic history, assumes you know an awful lot going in (e.g., what was the event known as Peterloo?). But a lot of interesting details about the lifeways of the English working class, with emphasis on how what we know is limited because many of the people involved left no records, some deliberately and some because their lives didn’t allow for it, while the records we do have were made by people with very different perspectives from that of most workers. Favorite tidbit: after a Luddite raid on a mill, two raiders were captured alive and probably tortured for information about their compatriots. A clergyman aligned with the ruling class exhorted a 19-year-old to confess. “Can you keep a secret?” he asked. “Yes, yes,” the clergyman said, leaning forward eagerly. “So can I,” he said, and died. ( )

I will fully admit that this rating is because I had an extremely difficult time following all the moving pieces; I'm not as familiar with English history as I should be, so the names that I probably should know, I didn't, and that did not help much, but Thompson shifts around so often that it's also dizzying geographically and temporally. I did love the immense number of dunks on economic historians he made, and he had some really important points for the field of labor history that I was able to recognize even as a person unfamiliar with the content. It also read much faster than I thought it would! Given the enormous size of the book, it goes by pretty quickly! ( )

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 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! ( )

The most important work of history in the English language in the twentieth century. ( )