Thompson makes great effort to recreate the life experience of the working class, which is what often marks the work out as so influential. Those people were not just the victims of history, and Thompson displays them as being in control of their own making: "The working class made itself as much as it was made." He also discusses the popular movements that are often forgotten in history, such as obscure Jacobin societies like the London Corresponding Society. Thompson attempts to add a humanist element to social history, being critical of those who turn the people of the working class into an inhuman statistical bloc. Its tone is captured by the oft-quoted line from the preface: "I am seeking to rescue the poor stockinger, the Luddite cropper, the "obsolete" hand-loom weaver, the "utopian" artisan, and even the deluded follower of Joanna Southcott, from the enormous condescension of posterity." : 12 It was placed 30th in the Modern Library 100 Best Nonfiction books of the 20th century. It concentrates on English artisan and working-class society "in its formative years 1780 to 1832". It was first published in 1963 by Victor Gollancz Ltd, and republished in revised form in 1968 by Pelican, after which it became an early Open University set book. The Making of the English Working Class is a work of English social history written by E.
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