The Poverty of Theory, Or, an Orrery of Errors

Dorothy thompson writes in her introduction: this essay is a rarity among edwards published work although he was throughout his life interested in the philosophy of history and in various theoretical formulations, he concerned himself with these mainly in private reading and private discussion why then did he write this essay he had read the work of louis althusser and found very liitle in them to affect his work when althusser appeared on the scene he made little impact on practicing historians for some reason however, he suddenly became a major force among graduate students and some young historians and literary scholars most historians would have been prepared to wait for the new influence to demonstrate its validity in the production of innovative work in history; not only did this not happen, but althussers followers - even some of the historians among them - began to declare that history was a non-discipline and that its study was of no value it was the influence that althussers