Marxist history is largely deterministic; it posits a forward-march view. This is problematic as it suggests that history is always about moving forwards, rather than viewing it as broadly a larger process, which can be cyclical in nature. Thompson in this sense is deviating from the Marxist norm, with his rescue mission putting spotlight on the ‘Luddite croppers,’ the machine breakers who were seen as emblems of pre-industrial society as they were hindering history from progressing. Industrialisation is taking the nation towards the industrial age, towards a future that is perceived as superior. Not only is he restoring voices to groups from subordinate, lowly positions but he is also questioning the very linear trajectory of progress, by considering other elements.

Hobsbawm and Rudé, in their introduction, make it explicitly clear that they intend to rebuild an account, to rescue an ‘anonymous and undocumented’ group, so that they can begin to ‘understand their movements,’ echoing Thompson’s mission. The Swing rioters: ‘nobody except themselves’ knew who they were, only identifiable by their children and gravestones. Thompson, Hobsbawm and Rudé are rewriting history, giving voice to the voiceless; the losers. Marking a departure from the study of study of great events, with a focus on the political and social elites, primarily wealthy, European men However, the way in which they write about the figures evokes different meanings; Thompson views the ‘Luddite cropper’ as heroes, they were the ‘casualties of history,’ the victims of the Industrial Revolution who were so easily replaced by machinery. He seeks to recover their reactionary views from the margins of the history and give them a leading role in their own drama. How Hobsbawm and Rudé’s represent the ‘casualties of history,’ arouses contrasting connotations. They are described as ‘primitive rebels’. Hobsbawm and Rudé view the nature of the disturbances as ‘’improvised, archaic, [and] spontaneous,’ whereas Thompson sees them as ‘curiously indecisive and unbloodthirsty.’ The trajectory of Marxism following Marx’s death has been strongly influenced by a productivist, economistic and evolutionist determinism. Thompson differentiates his approach, he is a romanticist who writes a eulogy, a utopian-revolutionary dialectic on pre-industrial subordinate people. Thus, highlighting the dialectic of Marxism and romanticism.