The making of the English working class

E P Thompson, Penguin, 960 pages, paperback, £25

Not many history books written 50 years ago remain essential reading today. But this is one such book.

The scale of the book is staggering, and it’s hard to pick out any particular part to focus on. Thompson describes a world changing as new interests and forces come to the fore — in this case the growth and expansion of industrial capitalism.

The book carries us through the very formation of the working class in society.

It looks at the role of groups such as the Luddites who, far from being the machine-wrecking reactionaries so often portrayed, were workers resisting the imposition of machinery that would  destroy their lives.

Brutality is here too. The massacre at Peterloo; the hanging of those who organised; the deportation of those who dared to speak out, or sell radical literature, or call for the vote.

Thompson has written a book for all of us. About our class, about our history. If you haven’t read it yet, now might just be a good time.

• A new 50th anniversary edition of The making of the English working class will be published by Penguin in October, price £20

Reviews contributed by the Bookmarks socialist bookshop. Order online at www.bookmarksbookshop.co.uk