Le passé d’une désillusion : les luddites et la critique de la machine
Vincent Bourdeau
François Jarrige
Julien Vincent
Luddism constituted a phase in English social history between 1811 and 1817, a phase marked by a
remarkably widespread phenomenon of machine-breaking. Ignored for generations, and subsequently the
object of denigration, Luddism came in for a reevaluation in E. P. Thomson's book The Making of the
English Working Class (1963), which fused a “Marxist” political perspective and the acutest requirements
of historical scholarship. In subsequent research, these two perspectives have drifted apart. On the one
hand, Thomson's historiographical heirs no longer subscribe to their predecessor's militant stance. On the
other, those researchers whose active commitment to the cause of political ecology since the 1990s had led
them to inject urgency into the historiographical debate, have proved less convincing in terms of their
contribution to historical scholarship. Luddism remains nevertheless a contemporary issue, both in
historiography and in political philosophy.
• Le luddisme (1811-1817) : un ancrage professionnel et régional 7
— L’amorce du luddisme dans les Midlands
— La longue haine des tondeurs du Yorkshire contre les machines
— L’unité par le nom : le luddisme dans le Lancashire
• Une philosophie politique du luddisme ?
— Communautés : l’économie morale des luddites
— Une parole ouvrière : le luddisme comme identité
— Le passé d’une désillusion
— L’épreuve de la machine
— Des machines politiques
— Du luddisme au néo-luddisme
• Le luddisme : un enjeu contemporain pour l’histoire et la
philosophie politique