One Summer 2024 Project I pursued (and Summer doesnt end until 22nd September) is to look at what might be termed the Making of the Making of the English Working Class.
E P Thompson signed a contract for the book in August 1959 but he had clearly done research and formed ideas on the subject well before that.
We know that some of these ideas came from adult education classes he gave in North Yorkshire. Some came from his activism in CND, the Communist Party and from 1956 the New Left.
His writings in the New Reasoner, Universities and Left Review and from 1960 New Left Review provide interesting insights into the approaches that Thompson took in the Making.
The brief extract below comes from an article Thompson wrote on Commitment in ULR. He was pursuing a friendly argument with the largely student focused ULR on what the nature of serious political activism meant and in particular had historically meant.
The flavour of interaction, debate, dispute and struggle can be found in many sections of the Making
The great pioneers never built on flattery: they denounced, they challenged, they offered the hardships of organisation, self-education, the difficult mastery of political understanding, the painful awakening of richer social aspirations:
Universities & Left Review 6, 1959
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