by the Past & Present editorial team

Saturday 3rd February 2024 was the 100th anniversary of the birth of Edward Palmer Thompson (best known by his publication initials E.P.).

E.P. Thompson was a key member of the Communist Party Historians Group out of which Past & Present emerged. However, he is widely remembered today for his pioneering approach and significant contribution to the study of social history, exemplified by the work The Making of the English Working Class, as well as his trenchant interventions in the fields of historiography and politics.

E P Thompson addresses anti-nuclear weapons rally, Oxford, England, 1980, Kim Traynor (1980), image via WikiMedia;Commons

Between the 1960s and the 1990s Thompson published three articles in Past & Present. The first of which “Time, Work Discipline and Industrial Capitalism” (No. 38, 1967) is according to Altmetrics the “most citied” in the history of the journal.

In honour of Thompson’s centenary our publisher Oxford University press has made his three articles for the journal free to read for the next fortnight:

*“Time, Work Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism”, Past & Present, Volume 38, Issue 1, December 1967, Pages 56–97

*“The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century”, Past & Present, Volume 50, Issue 1, February 1971, Pages 76–136

*”Hunting the Jacobin Fox”, Past & Present, Volume 142, Issue 1, February 1994, Pages 94–140

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