E.P. Thompson (1924 - 1993)
Sun Feb 03, 1924
Image: E.P Thompson, unknown year [The Guardian]
E.P. Thompson, born on this day in 1924, was an English Marxist historian and communist intellectual known for works such as "The Making of the English Working Class" (1963) and "Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism" (1967).
Thompson was born in Oxford on February 3rd, 1924. His older brother was a British officer in the Second World War, captured and shot while aiding Bulgarian anti-fascist partisans. After his own military service, Thompson studied at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge and joined the Communist Party of Great Britain.
In 1946, Thompson formed the Communist Party Historians Group with Christopher Hill, Eric Hobsbawm, Rodney Hilton, Dona Torr and others. In 1952, they launched the influential journal "Past and Present".
Thompson is probably best known for his 1963 work "The Making of the English Working Class", which focuses on the development of the capitalist-era class system in England. He left the Communist Party after the Soviet invasion of Hungary, but remained committed to communist politics.
Thompson became a major figure in the New Left in Britain from the 1960s, becoming a prominent supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and a vociferous left-wing critic of the Labour governments of 1964โ70 and 1974โ79.
Thompson died in 1993, and his final work, "Witness Against the Beast", a biography of poet William Blake, was published posthumously the same year.
"We must commence to act as if a united, neutral and pacific Europe already exists. We must learn to be loyal, not to 'East' or 'West' but to each other, and we must disregard the prohibitions and limitations imposed by any national state."
- E.P. Thompson
- Date: 1924-02-03
- Learn More: www.britannica.com, pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk.
- Tags: #Communism, #Marxism, #Birthdays.
- Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org