The democratic revolution in E.P.Thompson: a radical way of writing History

Abstract

This article deals with one of the foremost but frequently neglected issues raised by E.P. Thompson ́s The Making of The English Working Class: the abortion of a fully democratic revolution in late Eighteenth Century and early Nineteenth Century-England. Reconsidering the popular projects that were annihilated by liberalism means not only to reevaluate those popular fights in the framework of their historical context; it also implies a historical critique of the liberal theories of modernization, whose main result consists in a symbolic repression of class struggles and exploitation. In order to understand Thompson’s work from this point of view, and building on the Marxist and poststructuralist literary theory, we need to closer look at his own theory of history as well as at his most fruitful contradictions. Thus, Thompson’s work becomes an endless inspiration for understanding the history of capitalism and its alternatives.