A fascinating array of ethnographic and theoretical relevant case studies, this book is timely and topical in combining substantial new historical and ethnographic material about elites. Case studies include the Polish gentry, the white former colonial elite of Mauritius, professional elites, and transnational (financial) elites, with queries about power, culture, distinction, and marginalization. The focus on elites from an anthropological perspective makes a significant contribution to explaining numerous and often paradoxical aspects of elites, their behavior, their position and their relationship with other social groupings.

In "Political Ideology and Class Formation," Carolyn Howe presents an analysis of theories of the middle class, focusing on the class location and political ideology of three strata referred to as managers, knowledge controllers, and semi-professionals. Five theories of the middle class are systematically examined: new class, new working class, new petit bourgeoisie, new labor aristocracy, and contradictory class locations. Using these five theories, the author offers an accessible analysis of recent debates within class analysis and stratification studies.

The first chapter situates these debates within traditional sociological studies of social class, from Marx and Weber to contemporary scholars working within the traditions of Marx and Weber. Using data from the "Class Structure and Class Consciousness Study "initiated by Erik Olin Wright at the University of Wisconsin, Howe develops a comparative study of the United States and Sweden. She concludes with a new model of the class structure of advanced capitalist countries. In the final chapters, Howe develops an analysis of political-ideological cleavages within classes and looks at the potential for interclass political coalitions and alliances. She states that class analysis must also include an analysis of race and gender, as capitalist societies are also fundamentally structured by race and gender inequalities. Recommended for sociologists, political scientists, and other scholars of class analysis, stratification, political theory, and social movements.

Exploring the relationship between class, sexuality and social exclusion, this is an original study of women who identify themselves as working-class and lesbian, highlighting the significance of class and sexuality in their biographies, everyday lives and identities. It provides insight into the experiences of self-identified working-class lesbians and offers a timely critique of queer theory and an empirical interrogation of the embodied, spatial and material intersection of class and sexuality.

This is the history of England's turbulent times, told through the stories of the country's nobility. The book begins with the Norman Conquest in 1066 and ends with the union of England and Scotland in 1707. The nobility fought wars against Scotland in the north and against France on the Continent. They conquered Ireland and Wales and then had to deal with the rebellions that followed. This is the story of their abduction plots and assassination attempts and the brutal retribution when the treachery failed. It recalls the barons' rebellions and the peasant uprisings against the king. It also explains the reasons behind the family factions who fought for the crown, the most famous example being the War of the Roses. Also covered are the noble marriages arranged by the king to reward loyalty and maintain the balance of power. It tells of the children betrothed to marry, the failed marriages of convenience and the secret marriages for love. Learn how Henry VIII introduced new problems when he appointed himself head of the Church of England. Successive monarchs switched between the new church and the Catholic Church. Then there was the challenge to Charles I's rule in the Civil Wars.The story ends with the union of England and Scotland and the creation of Great Britain in 1707. It was also the end of the period of treachery and retribution which had plagued the English crown for nearly 650 years.

Terry Eagleton provides a novel account of Ireland's neglected "national" intellectuals, an extraordinary group, including such figures as Oscar Wilde's father William Wilde, Charles Lever, Samuel Ferguson, Isaac Butt, Sheridan Le Fanu. They formed a kind of Irish version of "Bloomsbury," but one composed, exceptionally, of scientists, mathematicians, economists, and lawyers, rather than preponderantly of artists and critics.

Their work, much of it published in the pages of the "Dublin University Magazine," was deeply caught up in networks of kinship, shared cultural interests and intersecting biographies in the outsized village of nineteenth-century Dublin. Eagleton explores the preoccupations of this remarkable community, in all its fascinating ferment and diversity, through the lens of Antonio Gramsci's definitions of "traditional" and "organic" intellectuals, and maps the nature of its relation to the Young Ireland movement, combining his account with some reflections on intellectual work in general and its place in political life.

"Scholars and Rebels" is essential reading for all those concerned to understand not just the complexities of nineteenth-century Irish intellectual culture and the emergent Irish Revival, but the formation also of Irish culture in the twentieth century.

Under contemporary capitalism the extraction of value from the built environment has escalated, working in tandem with other urban processes to lay the foundations for the exploitative processes of gentrification world-wide. Global gentrifications: Uneven development and displacement critically assesses and tests the meaning and significance of gentrification in places outside the `usual suspects' of the Global North. Informed by a rich array of case studies from cities in Asia, Latin America, Africa, Southern Europe, and beyond, the book (re)discovers the important generalities and geographical specificities associated with the uneven process of gentrification globally. It highlights intensifying global struggles over urban space and underlines gentrification as a growing and important battleground in the contemporary world. The book will be of value to students and academics, policy makers, planners and community organisations.

Based on a flagship research project for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's Immigration and Inclusion programme, this book argues that social cohesion is achieved through people (new arrivals as well as the long-term settled) being able to resolve the conflicts and tensions within their day-to-day lives in ways that they find positive and viable.

At a time when social commentators are increasingly likely to assert the "death of class" as a source of social inequality and conflict, this far-reaching volume reasserts the significance of class and gender for understanding socioeconomic conditions. Rather than declining in importance, class and gender processes are being transformed by social and economic changes associated with postindustrialism, including the entrance of women into the labor market in ever greater numbers, a shift from manufacturing to services, and the rise of part-time employment.
Moving away from the narrowly focused debates that have characterized much recent class analysis, the contributors to this book urge a nuanced approach that focuses on the specific institutional contexts of class-gender relations in various advanced industrial nations. Class and gender relationships in each country are contextually embedded, they argue, in such issues as the differences in welfare-state regimes, the varying availability of flexible forms of employment, and the degree to which the labor market is politically regulated.
The essays analyze the class and gender bases of economic inequality in ways that are sensitive to nationally specific institutional conditions. Two introductory chapters set the terms of the theoretical analysis and provide a framework for thinking about the relationships between gender and class. The remaining chapters offer comparative, cross-national analyses that investigate empirical examples of the links between class and gender relations, including the changing gender composition of the middle class, gender differences in access to managerial positions, the social ramifications of flexible employment arrangements, the links between paid and unpaid work, and the increasing feminization of poverty.
The contributors include Gunn Elisabeth Birkelund, Wallace Clement, Rosemary Crompton, Paula England, Siv Overas, Rachel Rosenfeld, and Erik Olin Wright.

Moving beyond the preoccupation of honour and its associations with violence and sexual reputation, Courtney Thomas offers an intriguing investigation of honour's social meanings amongst early modern elites in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. If I Lose Mine Honour I Lose Myself reveals honour's complex role as a representational strategy amongst the aristocracy. Thomas' erudite and detailed investigation of multi-generational family papers as well as legal records and prescriptive sources develops a fuller picture of how the concept of honour was employed, often in contradictory ways in daily life. Whether considering economic matters, marriage arrangements, supervision of servants, household management, mediation, or political engagement, Thomas argues that while honour was invoked as a structuring principle of social life its meanings were diffuse and varied. Paradoxically, it is the malleability of honour that made it such an enduring social value with very real meaning for early modern men and women.

Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929), the controversial American economist and social critic, argues that economics is essentially a study of the economic aspects of human culture, which are in a constant state of flux. In his best-known work, "The Theory of the Leisure Class" (1899), Veblen appropriated Darwin's theory of evolution to analyse the modern industrial system. While industry itself demanded diligence, efficiency, and co-operation, businessmen in opposition to engineers and industrialists were only interested in making money and displaying their wealth in what Veblen coined 'conspicuous consumption'. Veblen's keen analysis of the psychological bases of American social and economic institutions laid the foundation for the school of institutional economics.

Rich in detail and lucidly written, this is the first comprehensive study of the new middle class in Malaysia. Abdul Rhaman Embong examines the emergence and role of the new Malay middle class, particularly with regard to democratization and evolution of civil society in Malaysia. The author explores variations within the class across the country,andralso draws comparisons with the Malay working class, and the middle classes of China, India, and elsewhere in Asia.

This book argues that Western class categories do not directly apply to China and that the new Chinese middle class is distinguished more by socio-cultural rather than by economic factors. Based upon qualitative interviews done in Guangdong in South China, the study looks at entrepreneurs, professionals, and regional party cadres from various age groups, showing the complex networks among these different groups and the continuing significance of cadres. The study also explores generational differences, exposing how older generations are pragmatic and business-oriented, rather than personally oriented in their consumption whereas the younger generations appear more flexible and hedonistic and tend to be more individualistic, materialistic and oriented towards personal gain. In neither older or younger generations is there much evidence that the new Chinese middle class is taking on a political role in advocating political reform alongside market reforms as is suggested by some Western stratification theorists. Despite being in the vanguard of consumption, they are the laggards in politics.

Everyday foodways are a powerful means of drawing boundaries between social groups and defining who we are and where we belong. This book draws upon auto/biographical food narratives and emphasises the power of everyday foodways in maintaining and reinforcing social divisions along the lines of gender and class.

Rethinking Class and Social Difference brings together contributions from scholars developing new social scientific and theoretical approaches to a wide range of differing forms of social difference and inequality, especially as they are rooted in and informed by the political economy of capitalism. These include race, nationalism, sexuality, professional classes, domestic employment, digital communication and uneven economic development. The volume is brought together by a focus on how seemingly class-neutral processes of social difference and inequality is deeply related to class inequality. Ultimately, the volume argues for a brave rethinking of the ways that class and other forms of social difference are bound together.

In 2016 and 2020, the Bernie Sanders campaign gave American leftists a path towards social change through electoral politics. In order to combat neoliberal and reactionary uses of identity, the 2020 Sanders campaign combined a working-class agenda of universalist policies with various forms of social movement activism. In doing so it compromised on universalist principles and socialist radicalism in order to appeal to distinct demographic groups and win the election. Bernie Bros Gone Woke reveals how intersectional politics contributed to the failure of the Sanders campaign - a lesson that the organized left must learn if it is to challenge progressive neoliberalism and move beyond postmodern post-politics.

The New Class Society introduces students to the sociology of class structure and inequalities as it asks whether or not the American dream has faded. The fourth edition of this powerful book demonstrates how and why class inequalities in the United States have been widened, hardened, and become more entrenched than ever. The fourth edition has been extensively revised and reorganized throughout, including a new introduction that offers an overview of key themes and shorter chapters that cover a wider range of topics. New material for the fourth edition includes a discussion of "The Great Recession" and its ongoing impact, the demise of the middle class, rising costs of college and increasing student debt, the role of electronic media in shaping people's perceptions of class, and more.

The city of Belfast tends to be discussed in terms of its distinctiveness from the rest of Ireland, an industrial city in an agricultural country. However, when compared with another 'British' industrial port such as Bristol it is the similarities rather than the differences that are surprising. When these cities are compared with Dublin, the contrasts become even more painfully evident. This book seeks to explore these contrasting urban centres at the start of the twentieth century.

East London has undergone dramatic changes over the last 30 years, primarily as a result of London's large scale de-industrialisation and the rise in its financial sector. Large parts of inner East London remain deprived, but a once overwhelmingly white working class area is now home to a more complex and mobile class and ethnic mix. This topical book focuses on the aspirations of these different groups and the strategies they have pursued about where to live, driven in part by a concern to ensure a good education for their children. The book will be essential reading for students and academics in sociology, urban studies, geography and multicultural studies.

Many studies of the Chinese middle class focus on defining it and viewing its significance for economic development and its potential for sociopolitical modernisation. This book goes beyond such objective approaches and considers middle class people's subjective understanding and diverse experiences of class. Based on extensive original research including social surveys and detailed interviews, the book explores who the middle class think they are, what they think about a wide range of socioeconomic and sociopolitical issues, and why they think as they do. It examines attitudes towards the welfare state, social inequality, nationalism, relations with foreign countries and opinions on many social controversies, thereby portraying middle class people as more than simply luxury consumers and potential agents of democracy. The book concludes that a clear class identity and political consciousness have yet to emerge, but that middle class attitudes are best characterised as searching for a balance between old and new, the traditional and the foreign, the principled and the pragmatic.

Finally available in paperback, "Power and Culture" is the last work by America's most influential labor and social historian, the late Herbert Gutman. Edited and introduced by Gutman's colleague Ira Berlin, the book includes original, unpublished essays from throughout Gutman's career and important but unavailable works from journals and periodicals, as well as an extended interview with Gutman and a comprehensive bibliography of his works.

"Power and Culture" features essays on the lives of workers and the formation of class during the "Gilded Age" of American corporations, and on the lives of African American slaves and freedmen--the studies for which Gutman became famous. But it also shows the range of his thought on such subjects as "Roots "and popular historical awareness. With Berlin's critical and biographical introduction, "Power and Culture" is an important reappraisal of a major scholar.

Ellis Wasson offers one of the first comprehensive studies of the European ruling class during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Distilling a wealth of recent research, Wasson analyses the role of aristocracy in modern times, focusing on the tensions that exist between egalitarian values and the way elites shape society. Wasson explodes myths and jettisons stereotypes in sweeping coverage that takes the story from the Congress of Vienna to Stalingrad. The study recounts the change from the genteel world of court balls to Cafe Society and finally on to Eurotrash. It also contrasts the paradox of continued aristocratic social power and cultural leadership with the gradual decline in their political authority. Aristocracy and the Modern World covers key topics, such as: - the fabulous wealth of the great magnates - the relationship between servants and masters - interaction with the middle classes - concepts of honour - culture, recreation and gender - local authority and national power. Lively and authoritative, the book reviews developments in Scandinavia, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, France, Italy and Spain as well as in Britain, Germany and Russia. It is essential reading for all those with an interest in modern European history.

Mademoiselle de Montpensier: Writings, Chateaux, and Female Self-Construction in Early Modern France examines questions of self-construction in the works of Anne-Marie-Louise d'Orleans, Duchesse de Montpensier (1627-1693), the wealthiest unmarried woman in Europe at the time, a pro-women advocate, author of memoirs, letters and novels, and the commissioner of four chateaux and other buildings throughout France, including Saint-Fargeau, Champigny-sur-Veude, Eu, and Choisy-le-roi. An NEH-funded project, this study explores the interplay between writing and the symbolic import of chateaux to examine Montpensier's strategies to establish herself as a woman with autonomy and power in early modern France.