50 years of EP Thompson’s The Making of the English Working Class
13 April 2013, Manchester Time: 10.00–16.45 A commemoration to be held at the People’s History Museum, Manchester, organised by the People’s History Museum and the Working Class Movement Library
Edward Thompson’s The Making of the English Working Class appeared in 1963 and has become one of the most influential history texts of the twentieth century, engaging both academic and general audiences alike.
It is still in print fifty years on, having survived challenges from Marxist, feminist and postmodern historians and still continues to engage a broad audience. This day conference celebrates Thompson’s classic and considers its reception, its critics and why it endures. Guest speakers will be union grandee Rodney Bickerstaffe and broadcaster Stuart Maconie. Keynote address by Adrian Randall, Professor of English Social History at University of Birmingham.
This day conference seeks above all to attract people from all backgrounds – scholars and non-academics – to discuss Thompson, The Making and its wider legacy. For some The Making will have informed a lifetime of scholarship, for others it will be a fresh text encountered for the first time.
The conference will also include displays from the Working Class Movement Library and the Labour History Archive and Study Centre at the People’s History Museum.
See Northern Radical History Network website for more details