100 SOCIAL SCIENTIST has included a new article on the enclosure of common lands ('Custom, Law and Common Right'), has responded at length to the critics and commentators of the 'moral economy' argument ('Moral Economy Reviewed'), has combined his two published articles on eighteenth century society as one of plebeians and Parisians into one essay and added a reply to the critics section ('Parisians and Plebs'), and has assembled his notes on the practice of wife-selling that have been presented previously in bits and pieces in lectures and articles, again appended with a reply to critics ('The Sale of Wives'). All of these essays are marked by Thompson's concern to define and represent 'popular culture' at a time of land enclosures, new private property rights and free markets: 'we can read much eighteenth century social history as a succession of confrontations between an innovative market economy and the customary moral economy of the plebs' (p. 12). Since his focus is on mentalities, on subjectivity, his method is not strictly empirical; he does not total up the cases of struggles over land and bread nor attempt statistical exercises for changes in land ownership and bread prices. He poses the difficult question: the why and how of peoples' resistance to the market's depredations. What was the peoples' subjectivity that led them. to see certain uses of land or certain bread prices and marketing arrangements as just or unjust? What was the structure of their thinking, the extent and limits of their vision for the control and usage of land and the market? What were the lines of social solidarity for the struggles? How did they organize and how did they determine what was a victory or a defeat? Such questions necessitate close attention to the words and deeds of the commoners. Thompson has obviously been attentive; just a quick flip through the book's quotes indicates the unusual and varied sources that have been uncovered from dozens of archives. Writing of 'popular culture' and 'consciousness* is no doubt tricky and Thompson does not attempt anything more than 'impressions' (p. 24). He recognizes that a determination of subjectivity depends entirely on the time,, place and context of the subject: the cottager who during the day is deferential to the squire may at night 'kill his sheep, snare his peasants, and poison his dogs' (p. 66); the crowd that has assembled to acclaim royalty one day may at a later date be tearing down the place. With some reason, one might want to characterize an individual or group as deferential and fatalistic but this could overlook the contest of power and antagonism of intentions occurring even within seemingly submissive practices (a loyalist crowd's expectation of concessions the rulers may wish to deny). Likewise, one might miss a harmony of purpose behind a culture of rebelliousness, (rioters 'recalling the gentry to its patrimonial duties', p. 85). So how does one construct an analysis of cultural identity, that which is admittedly 'ambiguous'^ and 'alternating' (p. 10), for a society as a whole? How does one ascribe any