Arguments within English Marxism

Abstract

characteristic form taken by English since the war has been the study of history. No writer exemplifies its achievements better than Edward Thompson, whose of the English Working Class is probably the most influential single work of historical scholarship by a socialist today. An editor of The Reasoner in 1957 59, a founder of the Left in 1960, now an eloquent champion of civil rights, Thompson has most recently aroused widespread interest with the appearance of his Poverty of Theory, which combines philosophical and political polemic with Louis Althusser, and powerful advocacy of the historian's craft. Arguments Within English Marxism is an assessment of its central theses that relates them to Thompson's major historical writings themselves. Thus the role of human agency the part of the conscious choice and active will in history is discussed through consideration of its treatment in The Making of the English Working Class. problems of base and superstructure in historical materialism, and of affiliation to values in the past, are reviewed in the light of Whigs and Hunters. claims of utopian imagination are illustrated from the findings of William Morris. Questions of socialist strategy are broached in part through the articles now collected in Writing by Candlelight. Exploring at once differences and convergences between New Left Review and one of its founders, the essay concludes by suggesting the virtues of diversity within a common socialist culture.