Class Struggle and the Industrial Revolution

Abstract

Book review of John Foster, Class Struggle and the Industrial Revolution, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1974. This is an important book by a marxist historian which will have a considerable influence upon the work of social historians in the future. In a number of ways, this is a pioneering work, and its use of sophisticated quantitative techniques for the dissection of urban social structures will serve as a model for subsequent research workers. It is, however, a difficult volume to read; for one thing it is awkwardly organized around the experience of three towns-Oldham, Northampton and South Shields, with the greatest amount of space and attention being given to Oldham; and for another the analysis is densely argued but discontinuous, so that one has to jump from one section to another to obtain an overall understanding of the author's approach.