This book sets out to redress the balance of history in favor of the peasants. Reminding us that peasants made up the vast majority of the population in medieval Europe, R&oumlsener's research illustrates that their lives were just as complex and interesting as those of the nobility.
R&oumlsener first considers the social, economic and political foundations of peasant life, in particular how occupational and land divisions determined the relative freedom of the rural population. At the height of the Middle Ages, the peasant condition improved as the seigneurial system was gradually replaced by tenant farming and progress in agricultural technology increased productivity. Peasant colonists now left overcrowded villages to farm less fertile or barely populated terrains. Forms of village settlement diversified and relationships among the peasants developed into more complex communal networks. Changes were also apparent in the quality and variety of clothing and the design of farmhouses and farmyards. The author also sheds new light on successful peasants who owned land and began to form "peasant republics" independent of the nobility. As the peasant population swelled, however, economic and ecological concerns became of vital importance to a community which derived its living from the soil.
This book is a lively refutation of those preconceptions which see peasant existence either as a rural idyll or a life of unmitigated oppression and poverty. R&oumlsener's detailed study has unearthed a rich peasant culture which flourished alongside and was frequently in conflict with the medieval nobility.
Peasants in the Middle Ages will be welcomed by historians of medieval Europe and by sociologists and anthropologists interested in the Middle Ages or comparative studies.

Living Off Crime describes highly active property offenders who commit themselves to careers in serious property crimes such as burglary and armed robbery. This book takes the unique approach of situating these criminal careers within the fundamental sociological concepts of social class, criminal subcultures, and consciousness. Tunnell brings class back into the dialogue of property crime among the highly criminally active and economically marginalized, and gives considerable treatment to the subcultural values of this group. Repetitive property offenders also demonstrate a particular consciousness, which is used as an organizing motif throughout the book. Their consciousness indicates little of class commitment or anti-systemic recognition and strategy, but rather is described as street-centered, hedonistic anarchy as indicated by their disparate crimes against lower- and working-class individuals. The book does not ignore the politics of their behaviors; rather it describes their actions as political yet absent politicized class-based consciousness and strategies.

Originally published in 1964, this book analyses the unique type of social stratification which is more akin to a social class system in Monrovia, Liberia's capital. Liberia, established in 1847 has no history of rule by a colonial power and is of perculiar sociological interest, having been governed until the first half of the twentieth century by a minority group of immigrants from America and their descendants. The bulk of the population, however, is made up of members of about 20 tribes, between whom and the American descendants a caste-like social system has developed.

This book offers an understanding of the transient migration experience in the Asia-Pacific through the lens of communication and entertainment media. It examines the role played by digital technologies and uncovers how the combined wider field of entertainment media (films, television shows and music) are vital and helpful platforms that positively aid migrants through self and communal empowerment. This book specifically looks at the upwardly mobile middle class transient migrants studying and working in two of the Asia-Pacific's most desirable transient migration destinations - Australia and Singapore - providing a cutting edge study of the identities transient migrants create and maintain while overseas and the strategies they use to cope with life in transience.

This book analyses the making of the Chinese middle class that started in the 1990s using a constructivist approach. With the development of the Chinese economy, a new group of middle wage earners appeared. Chinese social scientists and state institutions promoted the idea that China needs a middle class to achieve modernization. Middle class members are defined-and define themselves-as good consumers, educated people, politically engaged but reasonable citizens. As such, the making of the middle class is the result of three convergent phenomena: an attempt to define the middle class, a process of civilization, and the development of protest movements. The making of the Chinese middle class, Rocca argues, is a way to end the stalemate that modern Chinese society is facing, in particular the necessity to democratize without introducing an election system.

Originally published in 1976, Working Class Radicalism in Mid-Victorian England examines working-class radicalism in the mid-Victorian period and suggests that after the fading of Chartist militancy the radical tradition was preserved in a working-class subculture that enabled working men to resist the full consolidation of middle-class hegemony. The book traces the growth of working-class radicalism as it developed dialectically in confrontation with middle-class liberal ideology in the generation after Waterloo. Intellectual forces were of central importance in shaping the character of the working-class Left and the Enlightenment, in particular, as the chief source of ideological weapons that were turned against the established order. The Enlightenment also provided the intellectual foundations of the middle-class ideology that was directed against the incipient threat of popular radicalism. The book notes that the same intellectual forces that entered into the first half of the nineteenth century also shaped the value system that provided the foundations of mid-Victorian urban culture. These forces also contributed to the rapprochement between working-class liberalism, bringing latent affinities to the surface. It is also emphasised, however, that inherited ideas and traditions exercised their influence in interaction with the structure of power and status.

Whilst learning is central to most understandings of what it is to be human, we now live in a knowledge society where being educated defines life chances more than ever before. Learning Beyond the School brings together accounts of learning from around the world in organisations, spaces and places that are schooled, but not school. Exploring examples of learning organisation, pedagogisation, informal learning and social education, the book shows not only how understandings of education are framed in terms of local versions of schooling, but what being educated could and should mean in very different social and political contexts. With contributions from scholars based in Australia, Europe, the USA, Latin America and Asia, the book brings together accounts of learning outside of school. Chapters contain rich and detailed case studies of innovative projects, new kinds of learning institutions, youth, peer-driven and community-based activities and public pedagogies, as well as engaging with the dimensions of an argument about the place and nature of learning outside of the school. It challenges dominant versions of school around the world, whilst also critically discussing the value and place of non-institutionalised learning. Learning Beyond the School should be of interest to academics, researchers, postgraduate scholars engaged in the study of comparative education, youth work, education systems, digital culture, sociology of education and youth development. It should also be essential reading for practitioners and policymakers who are interested in youth and education system reform.

This book presents an analysis of representations of white, heterosexual, working-class masculinities in British culture between 1945 and 1989 to trace the development of the sociocultural and material conditions that shaped the masculinities which are helping to shape contemporary culture. This book seeks to fan the 'spark of hope' in the past that informs our present. The period which saw the establishment of the welfare state and the construction and breakdown of the post-war consensus in British politics was of great significance in the formation and maintenance of working-class masculinities and their correspondent representations. The author engages with a variety of cultural texts across various modes and media including films (Alfie), plays (Don't Look Back in Anger), television (Boys from the Blackstuff), and music (The Beatles), and employs the analysis of the representation of working-class masculinities as a lens through which to examine a range of historical and cultural moments. This book reinstates class as a central precept in the study of British cultural representations and offers a timely intervention in ongoing debates around class and gender identities in Britain. The book will be key reading for students and researchers with interests in twentieth-century social and cultural British history, masculinities and gender studies, twentieth-century British literature, British television, and cultural studies more broadly.

This classic study on the sociology of Japan remains the only in-depth treatment of the Japanese middle class. Now in a 50th-anniversary edition that includes a new introduction by William W. Kelly, this seminal work paints a rich and complex picture of the life of the salary man and his family. In 1958, Suzanne and Ezra Vogel embedded themselves in a Tokyo suburb, living among and interviewing six middle-class families regularly for a year. Tracing the rapid postwar economic growth that led to hiring large numbers of workers who were guaranteed life-long employment, the authors show how this phenomenon led to a new social class, the salaried men and their families. It was a well-educated group that prepared their children rigorously for the same successful corporate or government jobs they held. Secure employment and a rising standard of living enabled this new middle class to set the dominant pattern of social life that influenced even those who could not share it, a pattern that remains fundamental to Japanese society today.

What is the social structure of Chinese society in the 21st century? How should China address the problem of migrant workers? How can China form a modern society? These key sociological issues are some of the topics this book covers. This book is a collection of the research articles and lectures that Dr. Lu Xueyi, the former Head of the Institute of Sociology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, has published since the 1980s. The author discusses the social structure, social stratification, social construction, and development of contemporary Chinese society. Arguing that the gap between economic and social development has become the major social issue facing modern China, the author advocates paying close attention to the country's social structure and the growth of the middle class. The book will be of interest to all scholars and students of Sociology and Chinese Studies.

What is the social structure of Chinese society in the 21st century? How should China address the problem of migrant workers? How can China form a modern society? These key sociological issues are some of the topics this book covers. This book is a collection of the research articles and lectures that Dr. Lu Xueyi, the former Head of the Institute of Sociology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, has published since the 1980s. The author discusses the social structure, social stratification, social construction, and development of contemporary Chinese society. Arguing that the gap between economic and social development has become the major social issue facing modern China, the author advocates paying close attention to the country's social structure and the growth of the middle class. The book will be of interest for all scholars and students of Sociology and Chinese Studies.

Hailed as the beneficiary, driving force and result of globalisation, India's middle-class is puzzling in its diversity, as a multitude of traditions, social formations and political constellations manifest contribute to this project. This book looks at Indian middle-class lifestyles through a number of case studies, ranging from a historical account detailing the making of a savvy middle-class consumer in the late colonial period, to saving clubs among women in Delhi's upmarket colonies and the dilemmas of entrepreneurial families in Tamil Nadu's industrial towns. The book pays tribute to the diversity of regional, caste, rural and urban origins that shape middle- class lifestyles in contemporary India and highlights common themes, such as the quest for upward mobility, common consumption practices, the importance of family values, gender relations and educational trajectories. It unpacks the notion that the Indian middle-class can be understood in terms of public performances, surveys and economic markers, and emphasises how the study of middle-class culture needs to be based on detailed studies, as everyday practices and private lives create the distinctive sub-cultures and cultural politics that characterise the Indian middle class today. With its focus on private domains middleclassness appears as a carefully orchestrated and complex way of life and presents a fascinating way to understand South Asian cultures and communities through the prism of social class.

In a front-page review in the Washington Post Book World, John Judis wrote: "Political analysts have been poring over exit polls and precinct-level votes to gauge the meaning of last November's election, but they would probably better employ their time reading the late Christopher Lasch's book." And in the National Review, Robert Bork says The Revolt of the Elites "ranges provocatively [and] insightfully." Controversy has raged around Lasch's targeted attack on the elites, their loss of moral values, and their abandonment of the middle class and poor, for he sets up the media and educational institutions as a large source of the problem. In this spirited work, Lasch calls out for a return to community, schools that teach history not self-esteem, and a return to morality and even the teachings of religion. He does this in a nonpartisan manner, looking to the lessons of American history, and castigating those in power for the ever-widening gap between the economic classes, which has created a crisis in American society. The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy is riveting social commentary.

From the acclaimed author of Listen, Liberal and What’s the Matter with Kansas, a scathing collection of interlocking essays perfect for this political moment.

With his trademark sardonic wit and lacerating logic, New York Times–bestselling author Thomas Frank takes us on a tour through present-day America, showing us a society in the late stages of disintegration.

Holding nothing back, Frank skewers both the right and left, and rages about the systematic inequality that led, in 2016, to millions of anxious, ordinary people rallying to the presidential campaign of a billionaire who meant them no good.

For those who despair of the future of America and of reason itself, Rendezvous with Oblivion is a booster shot of energy, reality, and moral outrage.

The traditional class analysis of politics in industrial societies described a conflict that pitted the well-off business class against the working class in a "democratic class struggle." This book holds that economic development has produced a New Class which rivals the business class in the politics of post-industrial societies.

In this monograph on the Russian cooperative movement before 1914, economic and social change is considered alongside Russian political culture. Looking at such historical actors as Sergei Witte, Piotr Stolypin, and Alexander Chaianov, and by tapping into several newly opened Russian local and state archives on peasant practice in the movement, Kotsonis suggests how cooperatives reflected a pan-European dilemma over whether and to what extent populations could participate in their own transformation.

The inspiring story of worker centers that are cropping up across the country and leading the fight for today's workers For over 60 million people, work in America has been a story of declining wages, insecurity, and unsafe conditions, especially amid the coronavirus epidemic. This new and troubling reality has galvanized media and policymakers, but all the while a different and little-known story of rebirth and struggle has percolated just below the surface. On the Job is the first account of a new kind of labor movement, one that is happening locally, quietly, and among our country's most vulnerable-but essential-workers. Noted public health expert Celeste Monforton and award-winning journalist Jane M. Von Bergen crisscrossed the country, speaking with workers of all backgrounds and uncovering the stories of hundreds of new, worker-led organizations (often simply called worker centers) that have successfully achieved higher wages, safer working conditions and on-the-job dignity for their members. On the Job describes ordinary people finding their voice and challenging power: from housekeepers in Chicago and Houston; to poultry workers in St. Cloud, Minnesota, and Springdale, Arkansas; and construction workers across the state of Texas. An inspiring book for dark times, On the Job reveals that labor activism is actually alive and growing-and holds the key to a different future for all working people.

In Co-operative Struggles, Denise Kasparian expands the theoretical horizons regarding labour unrest by proposing new categories to make visible and conceptualize conflicts in the new worker co-operativism of the twenty-first century.After the depletion of neoliberal reforms at the dawn of the twenty-first century in Argentina, co-operativism gained momentum, mainly due to the recuperation of enterprises by their workers and state promotion of co-operatives through social policies. These new co-operatives became actors not just in production but in social struggle. Their peculiarity lies in the fact that they shape a socio-productive form not structured by wage relations: workers are at the same time owners of the firms. Why, how, and by what cleavages and groupings do these co-operative workers without bosses come into conflict?

Family mobility decisions reveal much about how the public and private realms of social life interact and change. This sociological study explores how contemporary families reconcile individual members' career and education projects within the family unit over time and space, and unpacks the intersubjective constraints on workforce mobility. This Australian mixed methods study sampled Defence Force families and middle class professional families to illustrate how families' educational projects are necessarily and deeply implicated in issues of workforce mobility and immobility, in complex ways. Defence families move frequently, often absorbing the stresses of moving through 'viscous' institutions as private troubles. In contrast, the selective mobility of middle class professional families and their 'no go zones' contribute to the public issue of poorly serviced rural communities. Families with different social, material and vocational resources at their disposal are shown to reflexively weigh the benefits and risks associated with moving differently. The book also explore how priorities shift as children move through educational phases. The families' narratives offer empirical windows on larger social processes, such as the mobility imperative, the gender imbalance in the family's intersubjective bargains, labour market credentialism, the social construction of place, and the family's role in the reproduction of class structure.

Unequal life-chances became a key feature of cross-border migration to, and within, the enlarged Europe. Combining transnational, intersectional and cultural-sociological perspectives, this book develops a conceptual tool to analyse patterns, contexts and mechanisms of these cross-border inequalities. This book synthesizes the theories of social boundaries and of intersectionality, approaching cross-border relations as socially generated and as an inherent element of contemporary social inequalities. It analyses the mechanisms of cross-border inequalities as 'regimes of intersection' relating spatialized cross-border inequalities to other types of unequal social relations (in terms of gender, ethnicity/race, class etc.). The conceptual arguments are supported by empirical research on cross-border migration in Europe: migration of scientists and care workers between Ukraine and Germany. This book integrates the analysis of space - including cross-border categories of global and transnational - into intersectionally-informed studies of social inequalities. Broadly, it will appeal to scholars and students in the areas of sociology, political sciences, social anthropology and social geography. In particular, it will interest researchers concerned with transnational and global social inequalities, the interplay of the categories 'gender', 'ethnicity' and 'class' on the one hand and global and transnational relations on the other, theories of space and society, and migration and mobility in Europe.

"Caste", a word normally used in relation to the Indian subcontinent, is rarely associated with Japan in contemporary scholarship. This has not always been the case, and the term was often used among earlier generations of scholars, who introduced the Buraku problem to Western audiences. Amos argues that time for reappraisal is well overdue and that a combination of ideas, beliefs, and practices rooted in Confucian, Buddhist, Shinto, and military traditions were brought together from the late 16th century in ways that influenced the development of institutions and social structures on the Japanese archipelago. These influences brought the social structures closer in form and substance to certain caste formations found in the Indian subcontinent during the same period. Specifically, Amos analyses the evolution of the so-called Danzaemon outcaste order. This order was a 17th century caste configuration produced as a consequence of early modern Tokugawa rulers' decisions to engage in a state-building project rooted in military logic and built on the back of existing manorial and tribal-class arrangements. He further examines the history behind the primary duties expected of outcastes within the Danzaemon order: notably execution and policing, as well as leather procurement. Reinterpreting Japan as a caste society, this book propels us to engage in fuller comparisons of how outcaste communities' histories and challenges have diverged and converged over time and space, and to consider how better to eradicate discrimination based on caste logic. This book will appeal to anyone interested in Japanese History, Culture and Society.

We may think we control our own destinies, but who we are, how we think, what we feel, and how we act are shaped by multiple, intersecting identities that have different amounts of power and value in our society. Being Unequal explores how identity categories associated with race, class, gender, and sexuality help shape inequality. This concise and accessible book asks: How is identity experienced? How does identity help reproduce inequality? How does identity help resist inequality? What is the relationship between micro and macro inequality-in other words, how do our personal experiences shape larger social forces? Being Unequal argues that identities matter because they are a critical part of a complex social process in which everyday interactions contribute to larger systems of structural inequality. By recognizing the links between identity and inequality, Being Unequal also highlights the power of collective action to resist and oppose domination and exploitation. Filled with engaging real-world examples ranging from the social construction of momentary high school cliques to the emergence of momentous social movements, Being Unequal is a powerful introduction to social identities and the ways they shape our world.

This volume addresses the contested relationship between social stratification and social movements in three different ways: First, the authors address the relationship between social stratification and the emergence of protest mobilization. Second, the texts look at social stratification and social positions to explain variations in political orientations, as well as differing aims and interests of protestors. Finally, the volume focuses on the socio-structural composition of protestors. Social Stratification and Social Movements takes up recent attempts to reconnect research on these two fields. Instead of calling for a return of a class perspective or abandoning the classical social movement research agenda, it introduces a multi-dimensional perspective on stratification and social movements and broadens the view by extending the empirical analysis beyond Europe.

The neoliberal policy response to the crisis in Ghana did not succeed in reversing the economic decline in either the medium or long term. In fact, quite the opposite: rather than undoing the economic decline, Francis Boateng Frimpong argues that these policy prescriptions further weakened the country's ability to develop. This is because the policies intentionally and unintentionally encouraged factors that destabilised the possibility of the real productive assets earning commensurate returns that could facilitate the flow of capital to the real sectors and thus failed to ensure the survival of industrial enterprises. Rising profit in the financial sector incentivised financial capitalists to divert capital into financial assets at the expense of productive investment, further decelerating the pace of real capital accumulation in the country, thereby exacerbating the crisis.

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.