David Renton, "E. P. Thompson: the Activist Historian"

The subject of this paper is the relationship between Thompson's historical writing and his political activism. The activism is situated in the crisis of the 1940s, Thomspon's anti-fascism, the legacy of his brother's death and his later memory of the world war. This activism is then compared to the coded historical theory of The Making of the English Working Class, not just the famous quotes from the Preface, but to the activist sympathy which Thompson reveals for a range of social movements. The written version of the paper also rehearses the debate as to whether Thompson's book eased the path towards postmodernism. Although the Preface is open to subjective readings, the book as a whole is perhaps more "orthodox" than its author allowed.