汤普森所指的文化包含了物质文化、制度文化、观念形态文化和行为文化。在文化史研究中他借用了葛兰西的“文化领导权”概念,形成了全新的社会——文化分析模式,他对英国工人阶级形成和18世纪英国社会的研究开创了新社会史的文化语境。他的文化史观没有脱离历史唯物主义的框架,因而也不能称为“文化马克思主义”。 Thompson refers to the culture of material culture, institutional culture, ideology and culture and behavior culture. In the study of cultural history, he borrowed Gramsci’s concept of “cultural leadership”, forming a completely new socio-cultural analysis model. His study of the formation of the British working class and that of the 18th century British society created a culture of new social history Context. His concept of cultural history is not divorced from the framework of historical materialism and therefore can not be called “cultural Marxism.”