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In this second volume of The Making of the English Working Class , EP Thompson does not just argue with the victors' propaganda: he also criticizes the Marxist conceptions of the working class that transformed it into the result of the equation steam power plus the industrial system into a mere factor of production.
In EP Thompson's monumental work, The Making of the English Working Class , the second volume—" The Curse of Adam "—occupies a very special place. It has the peculiarity of being blunt from its opening paragraphs. The author, as a universal interpreter of history, abruptly confronts us with a disconcerting fact: the threatening presence of the factory. Weaving the fabric of his arguments through an impressive amount of documentation, we find ourselves amidst the discomfort of the human beings who experienced the factory as a "symbol of social energies" that changed the "course of nature." It is the author himself who says: "We can now see part of the truly catastrophic nature of the Industrial Revolution and some of the reasons why the working class was formed in those years. The people were subjected simultaneously to the intensification of two intolerable forms of relationships: economic exploitation and political oppression."
But the reader should not expect only a bleak picture of the factory world, as described by various 19th-century writers and intellectuals. It is true that Thompson sides with Engels in confirming that the period between 1790 and 1830 was extremely difficult for English workers and criticizes those who, in light of exaggerated economic growth rates, paint such an optimistic picture of workers' lives. Concomitantly with a detailed reconstruction of the living and working conditions of artisans, rural workers, women, and children, the author conducts a masterful analysis of the influence of the Methodist religion on workers. Discarding the Manichaean bias of historical interpretation, which associates Methodism exclusively with employers' practices of subjecting workers to factory discipline, Thompson shows us how this sect, with its millenarian dream, served as the basis for the emergence of feelings of hope and solidarity among workers.
Although the factory brought about a radical change in the habits and customs of the working world, and is considered the true Curse of Adam , this volume leaves us with a definitive mark on the working experience and its activities within and especially outside the factory environment. An intricate network of relationships was created there through the use of free time, the development of personal relationships—games, parties, celebrations, associations—and other initiatives that shaped working-class culture.
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