2026: Sunday October 11: The Making of the English Working Class

Yesterday Michael and I drifted into talking about Steinbeck, and that led us to talking about the color of Penguin paperbacks and that led to me pointing to my copy of E.P. Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class, which was not the same shade of blue as I remembered. Perhaps that is because it is in fact a Pelican Book (which is a Penguin imprint, but still, different). 

And that led to Michael reading me part of the first chapter, which is an almost Dickensian account of the rise, and demise, of the London Corresponding Society, and then we went down a rabbit hole of near-forgotten anti-capitalist protest movements. Forget the Luddites, anyone remember the Diggers? I think often about how people try to elbow out pockets of agency within oppressive systems and how it seems simultaneously futile and also absolutely necessary. 

This is a very important book on two very different levels. It was massively influential for how historians study class, and this particular copy has my father's signature in it. He had the most beautiful handwriting  and I still try to emulate it, but I never quite get the same flowing ease.