A Critical Review of E.P. Thompson’s “Free-born Englishmen”
Thompson is a highly influential historian whose work has greatly contributed to Marxist history and a broader social history. In particular his book ‘The Making of the English Working Class’, from which the article is taken, has been considered ‘one of the most widely influential historical texts of the second half of the twentieth century’. The article describes the experience of the English Working class struggling within a capitalist society. Thompson is often described as a British Marxist historian. In many British Marxist historians writing, economic Marxism is challenged in favour of a more social focus. As can be expected from a Marxist there is anti-capitalist overtone to Thompson’s work. British Marxist historians differ from Marxist historians in that they do not believe that changing modes of production is what shapes history and they place greater emphasis on the role of people and “class struggle”. In this respect Thompson is writing a ‘history from below’ by writing a ‘peoples history’ based upon how the English Working Class lived and struggled against bourgeoisie oppression during the Industrialisation of Britain. Despite the explicit social aspect of Thompson’s writing in “Free-born Englishmen” there is also an implicit nationalism in this work. Nationalist histories focus on politics and the nations legacy. Thompson combines British Marxism to produce a left-wing nationalist history.
Thompson emphasises the power that the working class had in shaping their future. By focusing on the resistance and rebellion of the working class, Thompson is showing how the actions and decisions of people is what leads to change and what shapes history. Thompson also includes details such as how the Major’s brother ‘accelerated other processes of change with his invention of the power-loom’. Clearly implying that it is people that cause economic change. This belief in the power of agency in...