"The Freeborn Englishman" Forty Years On.
E.P. Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class revisited.
Saturday 10th May 2003, Institute of Historical Research, Senate House, Malet St, London, WC1
Keynote speakers included Dorothy Thompson and Bryan Palmer
2003 marked the fortieth anniversary of the publication of one of the classics of socialist history, Edward Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class.
The book which remains in print today has been hugely influential in Europe, North and Central America and Asia. But if Thompson sought to rescue the forgotten rank and file of English working class history from the enormous condescension of posterity, does his book now itself need rescuing from those who would seek to amend, add to or challenge its contents?
Further how does Thompson's take on the history of the English working class look forty years on? How successfully has Thompson's method been applied to the experience of the working class in other countries? Would the same or a similar book be written in 2003 or do socialist historians now have different things to say about the past, present and future of the working class?
Papers presented:
- Plenary: Bryan Palmer, Dorothy Thompson, "The Making of the English Working Class Today"
- David Renton, "E. P. Thompson: the Activist Historian"
- Robert Poole, "The Manchester Rising of 1817"
- Keith Flett, "How the Making was Made: An Historiography of The Making of the English Working Class"
- Paul Reynolds, "Reflections on the Contemporary Relevance of The Making of the English Working Class in the study of Social Movements and Making Democracy"
- Wade Matthews, "Contradictions and Possibilities: Thompson and the Ideology of the Freeborn Englishman"
- Bernie Moss, "The Hidden Marxism of The Making of the English Working Class"
- Andrew Hemingway, "E.P. Thompson and Art History: Achievement and Unfinished Business"