EditorialAuthor(s): Edward ThompsonSource: Social History, Vol. 19, No. 2 (May, 1994)Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4286193 .

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Editorial

EDWARD THOMPSON

In the pages of a journal the modes of discourse are impersonal and public - and properly so. Extended reflections on personal knowledge and private contacts sit uncomfortably here. It is hard to find ways of writing and talking about a man whom many of us knew personally and who was a founding intellectual influence in our field of work. There is a literary form available - the obituary. It can serve all kinds of purposes, some of them useful. Our purposes are different.

Edward Thompson was a friend of Social History. In the years of its foundation he stimulated debate and, more than once, stung the editors into action. In 1978 Social History carried one of his seminal articles on eighteenth-century English society. His work has always received critical attention in these pages. We think that the appropriate form of recognising his contribution to the work of understanding the social past is to continue to question, to develop, to explore and to challenge his arguments.

Future issues of Social History will include critical discussion of various aspects of his work. Their purpose is not to memorialize a life which is ended, but to argue with, and sometimes against an intellectual project which continues. We expect that exchanges around this project will define, for years to come, important moments in the broad field of social history. Accordingly, we will welcome over the coming years further contributions conceived and written in the spirit of 'anti-obituary' that we have expounded here.

Janet Blackman Keith Nield John Seed

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