The Making of the English Working Class

This account of artisan working-class society in its formative years, 1780-1832, adds an important dimension to our understanding of the 19th century. E.P. Thompson shows how the working class took part in its own making recreates the whole life experience of people who suffered loss of status freedom, who underwent degradation who yet created a culture political consciousness of great vitality.

"Thompson's book has been called controversial, but perhaps only because so many have forgotten how explosive England was during the Regency the early reign of Victoria. Without any reservation, The Making of the English Working Class is the most important study of those days since the classic work of the Hammonds."-- Commentary

"Mr Thompson's deeply human imagination controlled passion help us to recapture the agonies, heroisms illusions of the working class as it made itself. No one interested in the history of the English people should fail to read his book."-- Times Literary Supplement