On reading The Making of the English Working Class

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Sixty years after it was first published, five essayists reflect on the legacy, ideas and personal inspiration of The Making of the English Working Class – and plot its place in the present day. EP Thompson's landmark social history, The Making of the English Working Class, is a book that changed lives. In an academic world where history was primarily concerned with power and political reform, EP Thompson sought to rescue working people from, as he put it, "the enormous condescension of posterity". It's a book that lies at the root of contemporary social history, of cultural studies, sociology and anthropology, where, in the years after its publication, the idea of agency – the 'making' of the title – came to be a defining touchstone in thinking about culture and society. And it was popular too, even if its easily recognisable blue Pelican covers – and almost 1,000 pages – were possibly more dipped into than read cover to cover. The writer and historian Sheila Rowbotham first met Edward and Dorothy Thompson in 1962, a year before the publication of The Making of the English Working Class. In this essay, she remembers their catalytic influence on her own life and work – and the continuing relevance of the book she first read in proof form as a student. Sheila Rowbotham is a historian of feminism and radical social movements. Her latest book is Daring to Hope: My Life in the 1970s.