The Making of the English Working Class

• E.P. Thompson
• Penguin, 1991
• Paperback, 958 pages
• 9780140136036

The Making of the English Working Class is probably the most imaginative post-war work of English social history.

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