The Making of the English Working Class

'I am seeking to rescue the poor stockinger, the Luddite cropper, the 'obsolete' hand-loom weaver, the 'utopian' artisan . . . from the enormous condescension of posterity'

E. P. Thompson's revolutionary 1963 account of working-class life re-created the experiences, ideals, rituals and aspirations of those who had been forgotten by history. From radical weavers to reforming journalists, it showed how the working class took part in the making of its own identity from 1780 to 1832: a time of acute upheaval in which countless people suffered degrading loss of status and freedom, yet created a culture and political consciousness of huge vitality.