The possibilities of theory

Edward Palmer Thompson's analysis of the moral economy was taken up by a wide range of varied historians and social scientists. The Poor Law, Thompson insists, has been badly misconstrued by orthodox Marxists, who would relegate it to the ideological superstructure, when it actually rears its imposing head 'at every bloody level' from superstructure to base. 'Rough music', in Thompson's view, 'belongs to a mode of life in which some part of the law belongs still to the community, and is theirs to enforce.' Through a close reading of Thompson's major historical works of the 1970s, it is possible to see a systematic application of Marxist-Gramscian theory to forge a new understanding of eighteenth-century English society. Distinguished Marxists, such as Christopher Hill, C. B. Macpherson and other historians had written authoritatively about Britain during the revolutionary era of the seventeenth century

Ideology · Marxist philosophy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Australian History and Society · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History · Law

• Chains of Connection

  Open Access•Theodore Koditschek•Modern Intellectual History•2017

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