ABSTRACT
Edward Palmer Thompson (1924-93) left giant footprints across the historiography of eighteenth-and nineteenth-century England. His work was spectacularly controversial and, wherever he moved, he was followed by adoring acolytes and splenetic critics (sometimes resembling careerist terriers snapping at his heels). One of the few historians of modern (and postmodern) times to attract verdicts like “one of those extraordinary people who inspired whole generations” and “one of a select band of historians who have fundamentally changed the ways we can look at the past”, Thompson’s reasons for studying history and his major contributions to historical (and political) analysis deserve close attention. This essay will give a short account of his life and political commitment, before addressing his developing concerns with class and culture in England in works which have shaped research all over the world concerned, as they are, with widely-differing societies and historical times.
