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A Flawed Conception of Class
Levine, Bruce
http://www.solidarity-us.org/site/node/3982Date Written: 2013-09-01 Publisher: Against The Current Year Published: 2013 Resource Type: Article Cx Number: CX20085 A critique of E.P. Thompson's 'The Making of the English Working Class.' Abstract: - Excerpt: I first read the Making of the English Working Class as a radical-minded college student in the late 1960s. Its focus on "anonymous" working people certainly did inspire me and help launch me on my own subsequent studies of labor and laboring classes. I assume, though, that all these years later -- and especially in a discussion like the present one -- I needn’t elaborate on the book's many strengths. Others will do that very well. I want instead to talk about an important weakness in that book, one that I believe offers poor guidance both to labor historians and socialist-minded labor activists. Subject Headings |