The Crisis of Theory : E.P. Thompson, the New Left and Postwar British Politics

The Crisis of Theory, available in paperback for the first time, tells the story of the political and intellectual adventures of E. P. Thompson, one of Britain's foremost twentieth-century thinkers. Drawing on extraordinary new unpublished documents, Scott Hamilton shows that all of Thompson's work, from his acclaimed histories to his voluminous political writings to his little-noticed poetry, was inspired by the same passionate and idiosyncratic vision of the world. Hamilton shows the connection between Thompson's famously ferocious attack on the 'Stalinism in theory' of Louis Althusser and his assaults on positivist social science in books like The making of the English working class, and he produces previously unseen evidence to show that Thompson's hostility to both left and right-wing forms of authoritarianism was rooted in first-hand experience of violent political repression. This book will appeal to scholars and general readers with an interest in left-wing politics and theory, British society, twentieth-century history, modernist poetry, and the philosophy of history. "This book tells the story of the political and intellectual adventures of EP Thompson, one of Britain's foremost twentieth-century thinkers. Drawing on extraordinary new unpublished documents, Scott Hamilton shows that all of Thompson's work, from his acclaimed histories to his voluminous political writings to his little-noticed poetry, was inspired by the same passionate and idiosyncratic vision of the world. In a narrative that moves from the battlefields of Spian and Italy to the coal towns of Yorkshire to the bloody chaos of Emergency India, Hamilton present Thompson as a man determined to find an alternative, in thought and in action, to the ideologies of Stalinism and right-wing 'Natopolotanism' that together dominated the postwar world ... This book will appeal to scholars and general readers with an interest in left-wing politics and theory, British society twentieth-century history, modernist poetry and the philosophy of history"--Provided by publisher "This book tells the story of the political and intellectual adventures of EP Thompson, one of Britain's foremost twentieth-century thinkers. Drawing on extrodinary new unpublished documents, Scott Hamilton shows that all of Thompson's work, from his acclaimed histories to his voluminous political writings to his littel-noticed poetry, was inspired by the same passionate and idiosyncratic vision of the world. In a narrative that moves from the battlefields of Spian and Italy to the coal towns of Yorkshire to the bloody chaos of Emergency India, Hamilton present Thompson as a man determined to fin an alternative, in though and in actio, to the ideolofies of Stalinism and right-wing 'Natopolotanism' that together dominated the postwar world...This book will appeal to scholars and general readers with an interest in left-wing politics and theory, British societym twentith-century history, modernist poetry and the philosophy of history" --P [4] of jacket "This book tells the story of the political and intellectual adventures of EP Thompson, one of Britain's foremost twentieth-century thinkers. Drawing on extraordinary new unpublished documents, Scott Hamilton shows that all of Thompson's work, from his acclaimed histories to his voluminous political writings to his little-noticed poetry, was inspired by the same passionate and idiosyncratic vision of the world. In a narrative that moves from the battlefields of Spain and Italy to the coal towns of Yorkshire to the bloody chaos of Emergency India, Hamilton present Thompson as a man determined to find an alternative, in thought and in action, to the ideologies of Stalinism and right-wing 'Natopolitanism' that together dominated the postwar world ... This book will appeal to scholars and general readers with an interest in left-wing politics and theory, British society, twentieth-century history, and the philosophy of history"--Page 4 of cover Front matter Epigraph Contents Acknowledgements Introduction Part I: From the 1930s to the Cold War The Making of EP Thompson: family, anti-fascism and the 1930s Part II: New Left, old problems Yesterday the struggle: ‘Outside the Whale’ and the fight for the 1930s A peculiar classic Getting out of the tent Part III: Crisis and creativity The road to St Paul’s The eagle and the bustard: EP Thompson and Louis Althusser ‘Mountainous inconsistency’: EP Thompson, Marx, and ‘The Poverty of Theory’ ‘Don’t Tread on Me’: the other side of Thompson’s critique Between Zhdanov and Bloomsbury: the poetry and poetics of EP Thompson Part IV: Making peace After St Paul’s: EP Thompson’s late work Conclusion: The last Muggletonian Marxist: EP Thompson’s paradoxical triumph Select bibliography Index This book tells the story of the political and intellectual adventures of Edward Palmer Thompson, one of Britain's foremost twentieth-century thinkers. It shows that all of Thompson's work, from his acclaimed histories to his voluminous political writings to his little-noticed poetry, was inspired by the same passionate and idiosyncratic vision of the world. The book demonstrates the connection between Thompson's famously ferocious attack on the ‘Stalinism in theory’ of Louis Althusser and his assaults on positivist social science in such books as The making of the English working class, and produces evidence to show that Thompson's hostility to both left- and right-wing forms of authoritarianism was rooted in first-hand experience of violent political repression. This book is an intellectual biography of EP Thompson, as well as an exercise in the sociology of knowledge: as such, it considers not just Thompson's ideas and arguments, but also the question of why he adopted those ideas, and made those arguments. -- .