Edward Arthur Thompson

Edward Arthur Thompson was an Irish-born British Marxist historian of classics and medieval studies. He was professor and director of the classics department at the University of Nottingham from 1948 to 1979, and a fellow of the British Academy. Thompson was a pioneer in the study of late antiquity, and was for decades the most prominent British scholar in this field. He was particularly interested in the relations between Ancient Rome and "barbarian" peoples such as the Huns and Visigoths, and has been credited with revitalizing English-language scholarship on the history of early Germanic peoples. Thompson's works on these subjects have been highly influential.