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‘A Traditional English (Not British) Country Gentleman of the Radical Left’: Understanding the Making and Unmaking of Edward Thompson's English Idiom

“…These were, in turn: 'The Peculiarities of the English' (hereafter Peculiarities) directed at the leading figures of the younger New Left generation: 'An Open Letter to Leszek Kolakowski' (hereafter Open Letter) which provided a public reprimand of this, formerly Marxist, Polish philosopher; and 'The Poverty of Theory' (hereafter The Poverty) which lampooned the avatar of Marxist structuralism, French philosopher Louis Althusser. 12 Despite some notable differences-Peculiarities involved an extended historical discussion of the deficiencies of his opponents' ideas, while the others reflected the philosophical inclinations of his selected opponents-these works were intimately related to one another in that they offered an overlapping and evolving set of reflections on Thompson's own, ambivalent relationship with the lineage of English social criticism. He also began to develop in these pieces an extended set of reflections on the importance and distinctiveness of historical forms of understanding.…”