Past and Present

 

As a journal associated with the Historians' Group, Past and Present gave materialist historians the opportunity to build up what G. Eley identifies as 'social history.'  In the "attempt to understand the dynamics of whole societies," social history stands in contrast to reductionist, parliamentarian, and juridical narratives.  Cast aside is gradual progressivism by E.P. Thompson, as it is by his admirer, Eley.  While Thompson proclaims, "I am seeking to rescue the poor stockinger, the Luddite cropper, the 'obsolete' handloom weaver, the 'utopian' artisan, and even the deluded follower of Joanna Southcott, from the enormous condescension of posterity," Eley remarks, "[Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class] was so inspiring because it provided access to a potential counternarrative that was different from the story of national stability and successful consensus, of gradualist progression toward a naturalized present..." (31 and 50 respectively).  Did Thompson manage to save the stockinger, cropper, weaver, artisan, or deluded follower?

In two Past and Present articles, Thompson offers a glimpse into his enterprise.  "Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism" and "The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century" are attempts to extricate the individual from the restrictions of the capitalist and the categorical pen of the history worker; as much as attempts to explain the longue durée.  The task-oriented worker fares better as life and work are blended, instead of falling to the conventional Elizabethan notions of time. (57, 60)  Similarly, the Melanesian man should not become the English collier, content and rapacious at the slightest economic stimulus. (78)  Nevertheless, despite antireductionism, Thompson understands that economic and social force are dynamic.  While he cannot save his subjects from the past, he leaves the possibility open that homo economicus can benefit from the unrestrained freedom of the corn trade.