cover image Making History: Writings on History and Culture

Making History: Writings on History and Culture

E. P. Thompson. New Press, $17 (384pp) ISBN 978-1-56584-217-5

The point of history, according to the late English historian Thompson, is to ``reconstruct the forgotten norms, decode the obsolete rituals and detect the hidden gesture,'' and for him that meant social history. The chronicling of wars and the actions of the ruling class interested him much less than the customs, folklore, practices and popular culture of nations, above all England. He was drawn to the plight of women and of the common people, particularly to the English working class, which he attempted to rescue from ``the condescension of posterity.'' In his view, history should be told from the bottom up rather than from the top down. But to dismiss him as a revisionist, left-wing historian would be unfair. He was too humane and multifaceted for that, and he found the theoretical arguments of Marxists boring, their concern with class tedious. Historical materialism and power relationships may not be the only lenses through which to view events. Whether he was reviewing the books of other historians such as Linda Colley or Herbert Gutman, or analyzing the contributions of Tom Maguire, Eleanor Marx, William Morris or Mary Wollstonecraft (``one of the greatest of Englishwomen''), Thompson wrote with a controlling integrity as well as great spirit. And he always delivered the long view, not pressing his nose ``too close against the windowpane'' but earnestly trying to stand back far enough to see the entire picture. (Jan.)