ABSTRACT
Perry Anderson’s Arguments within English Marxism is a remarkable achievement, for in this book he manages a balanced and sympathetic critical assessment of his old adversary Edward Thompson. To one who recalls the furious debate occasioned by the publication of The Origins of the Present Crisis’ in 1964-6 as a vital part of his intellectual formation, Anderson’s generosity of spirit is surprising and admirable. For if ever there was an intellectual ‘police action’, Thompson’s essay ‘The Peculiarities of the English’ (in The Poverty of Theory) must be it. This riposte was intended as a crushing, silencing blow against the youthful new guard of the New Left Review, against their attempt to develop through a new interpretation of English history a distinctive political position on the current conjuncture.
