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Thomas Bottomore

British sociologist (1920-1992)

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 1, 2026
Entity authorityQ1399773
Source-derived summary

Thomas Burton Bottomore (8 April 1920, England – 9 December 1992, Sussex, England) was a British Marxist sociologist.

Bottomore was Secretary of the International Sociological Association from 1953 to 1959. He was the eighth president of ISA (1974-1978).

He was a prolific editor and translator of Marxist works, notably his collections published in 1963: Marx's Early Writings and Selected Writings in Sociology and Social Philosophy.

He was Reader in Sociology at the London School of Economics from 1952 to 1964. He was head of the Department of Political Science, Sociology and Anthropology at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver from 1965 to 1967, leaving after a dispute over academic freedom. He was Professor of Sociology at the University of Sussex from 1968 to 1985.

Bottomore edited and contributed to numerous journals of sociology and political science, and edited A Dictionary of Marxist Thought in 1983 and co-edited (with William Outhwaite) The Blackwell Dictionary of Twentieth century Social Thought published posthumously in 1993.

Bottomore was a member of the British Labour Party.

Works

Classes in Modern Society (London: Ampersand, 1955; London: George Allen & Unwin, 1965) ISBN 9780043230015

Marx: Selected Writings in Sociology & Social Philosophy (London: Watts, 1956; Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963) editor with Maximilien Rubel ISBN 9780140205633

Sociology: A Guide to Problems & Literature (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1962) ISBN 9780415578936

Early Writings of Karl Marx (London: Watts, 1963) editor and translator OCLC 35082145

Elites and Society (London: Watts, 1964; Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966; Harmondsworth: Penguin.

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“Thomas Bottomore” enters the record as british sociologist (1920-1992). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Thomas, Bottomore and British can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1920, 1992, 1953, 1959—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1920-04-08. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Thomas, Bottomore and British.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1399773. VIAF identifies the subject as 54208210. The Library of Congress control number is n50044827. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1920, 1992, 1953 and 1959.

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This entry incorporates text from Thomas Bottomore” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.