Blood, Sweat, and Toil is the first scholarly history of the British working class in the Second World War. It integrates social, political, and labour history, and reflects the most recent scholarship and debates on social class, gender, and the forging of identities. Geoffrey G. Field examines the war's impact on workers in the varied contexts of the family, military service, the workplace, local communities, and the nation. Previous studies of the Home Front have analysed the lives of civilians, but they have neglected the importance of social class in defining popular experience and its centrality in public attitudes, official policy, and the politics of the war years. Contrary to accounts that view the war as eroding class divisions and creating a new sense of social unity in Britain, Field argues that the 1940s was a crucial decade in which the deeply fragmented working class of the interwar decades was "remade," achieving new collective status, power, and solidarity. He criticizes recent revisionist scholarship that has downplayed the significance of class in British society. Extensively researched, using official documents, diaries and letters, the records of trade unions, and numerous other institutions, Blood, Sweat, and Toil traces the rapid growth of trade unionism, joint consultation, and strike actions in the war years. It also analyses the mobilization of women into factories and the uniformed services and the lives of men conscripted into the army, showing how these experiences shaped their social attitudes and aspirations. Using opinion polls and other evidence, Field traces the evolution of popular political attitudes from the evacuation of 1939 and the desperate months of late 1940 to the election of 1945, opposing recent claims that the electorate was indifferent or apathetic at the war's end but also eschewing blanket assumptions about popular radicalization. Labour was an active agent in fashioning itself as both a national progressive party and the representative of working-class interests in 1945; far from a mere passive beneficiary of anti-Tory feeling, it gave organizational form to the idealism and the demand for significant change that the war had generated.

Long Lives Are for the Rich is the title of a silent ominous program that affects the lives of millions of people. In all developed countries disadvantaged and, especially, poor people die much earlier than the most advantaged. During these shorter lives they suffer ten to twenty years longer from disabilities or chronic disease. This does not happen accidentally: health inequalities – including those between healthy and unhealthy life styles – are mainly caused by social inequalities that are reproduced over the life course. This crucial function of the life course has become painfully visible during its neoliberal reorganization since the early 1980s. Studies about aging over the life course, from birth to death, show the inhumane consequences as people get older. In spite of the enormous wealth that has been piled up in the US for a dwindling percentage of the population, there has been growing public indifference about the needs of those in jobs with low pay and high stress, but also about citizens from a broad middle class who can hardly afford high quality education or healthcare. However, this ominous program affects all: recent mortality rates show that all Americans, including the rich, are unhealthier and dying earlier than citizens of other developed countries. Moreover, the underlying social inequalities are tearing the population apart with nasty consequences for all citizens, including the rich. Although the public awareness of the consequences has been growing, neoliberal policies remain tempting for the economic and political elites of the developed world because of the enormous wealth that is flowing to the top. All this poses urgent questions of social justice. Unfortunately, the predominant studies of social justice along the life course help to reproduce these inequalities by neglecting them. This book analyzes the main dynamics of social inequality over the life course and proposes a theory of social justice that sketches a way forward for a country that is willing to invest in its greatest resource: the creative potential of its population.

The authors of this timely book, Who Gets What?, harness the expertise from across the social sciences to show how skyrocketing inequality and social dislocation are fracturing the stable political identities and alliances of the postwar era across advanced democracies. Drawing on extensive evidence from the United States and Europe, with a focus especially on the United States, the authors examine how economics and politics are closely entwined. Chapters demonstrate how the new divisions that separate people and places-and fragment political parties-hinder a fairer distribution of resources and opportunities. They show how employment, education, sex and gender, and race and ethnicity affect the way people experience and interpret inequality and economic anxieties. Populist politics have addressed these emerging insecurities by deepening social and political divisions, rather than promoting broad and inclusive policies.

This book is the first ever collection of scholarly essays on the history of the Irish working class. It provides a comprehensive introduction to the involvement of Irish workers in political life and movements between 1830 and 1945. Fourteen leading Irish and international historians and political scientists trace the politicization of Irish workers during a period of considerable social and political turmoil. The contributions include both surveys covering the entire period and case studies that provide new perspectives on crucial historical movements and moments. This volume is a milestone in Irish labour and political historiography and an important contribution to the international literature on politics and the working class.

Winner of the 2021 Lionel Gelber Prize: A provocative look at how today's trade conflicts are caused by governments promoting the interests of elites at the expense of workers "The authors weave a complex tapestry of monetary, fiscal and social policies through history and offer opinions about what went right and what went wrong . . . Worth reading for their insights into the history of trade and finance."-George Melloan, Wall Street Journal "This is a very important book."-Martin Wolf, Financial Times Trade disputes are usually understood as conflicts between countries with competing national interests, but as Matthew C. Klein and Michael Pettis show, they are often the unexpected result of domestic political choices to serve the interests of the rich at the expense of workers and ordinary retirees. Klein and Pettis trace the origins of today's trade wars to decisions made by politicians and business leaders in China, Europe, and the United States over the past thirty years. Across the world, the rich have prospered while workers can no longer afford to buy what they produce, have lost their jobs, or have been forced into higher levels of debt. In this thought-provoking challenge to mainstream views, the authors provide a cohesive narrative that shows how the class wars of rising inequality are a threat to the global economy and international peace-and what we can do about it. Longlisted for the 2020 Financial Times & McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award and named a Best Business Book of 2020 by Strategy + Business

Archaeological discoveries have increasingly brought to light evidence of women's involvement in the royal houses of the ancient Near East, yet such evidence has not fundamentally altered the perception of monarchy as an exclusively male-gendered theological, political, and social institution. Solvang's study assembles the evidence in search of an integrated view of royal women's position and power in critical functions of monarchy, challenging customary assumptions about women's place in the royal harem. The historical information serves as a backdrop for a literary reading of biblical texts describing the royal house of Judah. Attention is given to three women representing different royal positions: Michal (daughter), Bathsheba (queen mother), and Athaliah (queen and monarch).

"Racism is like a Cadillac, they bring out a new model every year." - Malcolm X (a former auto worker) Written in a lively, accessible fashion and drawing extensively on interviews with people who were formerly incarcerated, Cars and Jails examines how the costs of car ownership and use are deeply enmeshed with the U.S. prison system. American consumer lore has long held the automobile to be a "freedom machine," consecrating the mobility of a free people. Yet, paradoxically, the car also functions at the cross-roads of two great systems of entrapment and immobility- the American debt economy and the carceral state. Cars and Jails investigates this paradox, showing how auto debt, traffic fines, over-policing, and automated surveillance systems work in tandem to entrap and criminalize poor people. The authors describe how racialization and poverty take their toll on populations with no alternative, in a country poorly served by public transport, to taking out loans for cars and exposing themselves to predatory and often racist policing. Looking skeptically at the frothy promises of the "mobility revolution," Livingston and Ross close with thought-provoking ideas for a radical overhaul of transportation.

The book analyses how lines of (non)belonging are traced and how notions of (non)belonging circulate around and are attached to students from immigrant backgrounds. Such circulations coalesce around values and practices linked to gendered, ethnic majority middle-class norms, through which difference is positioned and opposed in hierarchical terms. This project analyses the relationship between teachers' identities and their attitudes and pedagogic dispositions towards students from immigrant backgrounds, showing how these affect each other, contributing to their state of (non)belonging in the educational setting and in the wider society. Attention is brought to the pervasive and normalised background of neoliberal ideology, permeating the educational environment. In examining the (problematic) relationship between the previous elements, the book uncovers the intersectional reproduction of lines of belonging - and not belonging. While the analysis is centred on a study in Italy, it is situated within and provides links to international connections, facilitating a wider and global understanding of issues related to social justice. The book will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students and researchers across sociology, education, gender, and cultural studies. Due to the intersectional approach and the width of the issues explored, it will be of use to policymakers and practitioners.

Home Schooling and Home Education provides an original account of home education and examines ways in which the discourses of home education are understood and contextualised in different countries, such as the UK and USA. By exploring home education in the global and local context of traditional schooling, the book bridges a much-needed gap in educational and social scientific research. The authors explore home education from two related perspectives: firstly how and why home education is accessed by different social groups; and secondly, how these groups are perceived as home educators. The book draws upon empirical case study research with those who use home education to address issues of inequality, difference and inclusion, before offering suggestions for viable policy shifts in this area, as well as broadening understandings of risk and marginality. It engages and initiates debates about alternatives to the standard schooling model within a critical sociological context. The scholarly emphasis and original nature of Home Schooling and Home Education makes this essential reading for academics and postgraduate researchers in the fields of education and sociology, as well as for educational policymakers.

Young Homeless People takes a broad approach to the distressing phenomenon of youth homelessness. While politicians, researchers and the media focus on the more visibly homeless--those sleeping in city streets and shelters--this book also considers the young homeless hidden in local communities. It places young people's experiences of homelessness in the context of their biographies as a whole and makes policy and practice recommendations based on the views and preferences of young homeless people themselves.

What does consumption in the global south signify, and how are its complexities communicated in media discourses? Consumption, Media and the Global South presents original research examining key themes in the ways in which consumption in the global south - by elites, the middle classes, and the poor - is discursively constructed in media texts. With the global triumph of capitalist economies and neoliberal values, consumption is increasingly viewed by populations in the global south as both a right to which they are denied access, and once accessed as evidence of an improved life. The ways in which this debate plays out on the stage of the media is an important element of the picture. This book looks at the media representation of consumer culture in Africa, China, Brazil and India through case studies ranging from celebrity selfies, to travel websites, news reports and documentary film.

French sociologist and anthropologist Pierre Bourdieu's relevance for studies of spatiality and mobility has received less attention than other aspects of his work. Here, Deborah Reed-Danahay argues that the concept of social space, central to Bourdieu's ideas, addresses the structured inequalities that prevail in spatial choices and practices. She provides an ethnographically informed interpretation of social space that demonstrates its potential for new directions in studies of mobility, immobility, and emplacement. This book traces the links between habitus and social space across the span of Bourdieu's writings, and places his work in dialogue with historical and contemporary approaches to mobility.

Economic Restructuring and the Growing Uncertainty of the Middle Class focuses on a relatively new research area which is becoming increasingly more important: the growing uncertainty of the middle class. Until recently, members of the middle class were not only assured of a good social and economic position but also of the continuation of this position. Nowadays, economic and organisational changes are threatening this once secure position. The boundaries between the middle classes and the working class are becoming less and less visible. Making a career', which was in the past central for middle class people, is becoming ever more difficult. Moreover, organisational restructuring is threatening their employment. It seems that insecurity is becoming a central element in the lives of members of the middle class. In this book experts from several European countries discuss the question of to what extent the position of the middle class is really changing. They also discuss the mechanisms that are propelling these changes, and the effects these changes have on the attitudes of middle-class people. As the experts are from several parts of Europe (Great Britain, Germany, The Netherlands, Greece, Spain and Russia), the reader can compare the situation of the middle classes in these various countries. This book contains valuable information for anyone interested in this important topic: not only for those involved in the studies of economic and organisational change and social stratification and those interested in the similarities and differences between European countries, but (amongst others) for policy-makers, managers, and trade union representatives who will be dealing with problems induced by the changes that are discussed in the book.

Social advantage and disadvantage are potent catch-all terms. They have no established definition but, considered in relation to one another, they can embrace a wide variety of more specific concepts that address the ways in which human society causes, exacerbates or fails to prevent social divisions or injustices. This book captures the sense in which any conceptualisation of disadvantage is concerned with the consequences of processes by which relative advantage has been selectively conferred or attained. It considers how inequalities and social divisions are created as much by the concentration of advantage among the best-off as by the systematic disadvantage of the worst-off. The book critically discusses - from a global and a UK perspective - a spectrum of conceptual frameworks and ideas relating to poverty, social exclusion, capability deprivation, rights violations, social immobility, and human or social capital deficiency. It addresses advantage and disadvantage from a life course perspective through discussions of family and childhood, education, work, old age, and the dynamics of income and wealth. It considers cross-cutting divides that are implicated in the social construction and maintenance of advantage and disadvantage, including divisions premised on gender, 'race', ethnicity, migration and religion, neighbourhood and the experience of crime.

This book examines the structures and texture of rural social relationships, using one type of document found in abundance over all the four component parts of Britain and Ireland: petitions from tenants to their landlords. The book offers unexpected angles on many aspects of society and economy on estates in the 17th and 18th centuries.

In this collection of essays a number of distinguished scholars examine the proletarianization process and its relation to social protest and class formation. The authors consider how the social origins of the industrial work force and the migration patterns that brought workers to industrial areas shaped the workers' developing identity and led them to participate in mass protests. The essays provide an overview of proletarianization in industrializing regions and in several different countries. Although the authors of these articles employ a variety of disciplines--anthropology, history, and sociology--all the essays deal with historical aspects of the process of class formation and the forging of a modern working class. The essays span three continents and two centuries, and the volume includes a comprehensive annotated bibliography of relevant works drawn from the suggestions of the contributors.

A denunciation of the credentialed elite class that serves capitalism while insisting on its own progressive heroism Professional Managerial Class (PMC) elite workers labor in a world of performative identity and virtue signaling, publicizing an ability to do ordinary things in fundamentally superior ways. Author Catherine Liu shows how the PMC stands in the way of social justice and economic redistribution by promoting meritocracy, philanthropy, and other self-serving operations to abet an individualist path to a better world. Virtue Hoarders is an unapologetically polemical call to reject making a virtue out of taste and consumption habits. Forerunners: Ideas First is a thought-in-process series of breakthrough digital publications. Written between fresh ideas and finished books, Forerunners draws on scholarly work initiated in notable blogs, social media, conference plenaries, journal articles, and the synergy of academic exchange. This is gray literature publishing: where intense thinking, change, and speculation take place in scholarship.

What holds Indonesia together? 'A strong leader' is the answer most often given. This book looks instead at a middle level of society. Middle classes in provincial towns around the vast archipelago mediate between the state and society and help to constitute state power. 'Middle Indonesia' is a social zone connecting extremes. The Making of Middle Indonesia examines the rise of an indigenous middle class in one provincial town far removed from the capital city. Spanning the late colonial to early New Order periods, it develops an unusual, associational notion of political power. 'Soft' modalities of power included non-elite provincial people in the emerging Indonesian state. At the same time, growing inequalities produced class tensions that exploded in violence in 1965-1966.

.,."Lubrano is a great reporter...he has chosen here a great and often overlooked subject, the role of class in modern American society, and has produced a book rich with insight into both his own and all our lives..."
-Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down

A groundbreaking work of narrative nonfiction

In the vein of Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed, this powerful work of narrative nonfiction uncovers a cultural phenomenon-the limbo existence of people raised in blue-collar families, living white-collar lives. Its approach is threefold: first, the personal story of the author himself, a working-class kid from Brooklyn who crossed over to the middle class after attaining an Ivy League education; second, a distillation of thought about class and mobility from leading experts; and finally, and most importantly, the stories of more than 100 interviewees, all "Straddlers" struggling with the duality that exists in their workplace, their hearts, and their minds.

"In Limbo, people straddle two social zones....The future is never assured when you come from a house of rough hands. There are many profound opinions in this major newspaperman's reporting."
-Jimmy Breslin
Pulitzer Prize--winning journalist and author of The Short Sweet Dream of Eduardo Gutierrez

"If you have any bloodlines at all to the working class, you will recognize- and newly discover-yourself in Alfred Lubrano's inspired book. Limbo brings to life the minefield crossover from the blue-collar world to the white-collar one in prose that is at once trout-stream clear and luminous. It's the very American, real-as-a-streetfight story of a bricklayer's son's own uneasy journey out of Bensonhurst wovenmovingly with the journeys of a legion of other 'Straddlers.' Don't pass this gem by."
-Sydney Schanberg
Pulitzer Prize--winning journalist and author of The Death and Life of Dith Pran

"Al Lubrano is a great reporter and the kind of writer whose work is infused with both thought and feeling. He has chosen here a great and often overlooked subject, the role of class in modern American society, and has produced a book rich with insight into both his own life and all our lives. If you are like me, you will nod your head with recognition throughout."
-Mark Bowden
author of Black Hawk Down and Killing Pablo

First Published in 1971. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The Covid-19 pandemic and the disruptions of climate change are features of post-normal times. In Sociology in Post-Normal Times, Charles Thorpe contends that the modern project of creating normalcy within the nation state has broken down. Integral to this is sociology, which is the science of social reform. Drawing from the work of seminal theorists such as Zygmunt Baumann and Anthony Giddens, Thorpe contends that sociology's "society" is no longer viable because globalization has put an end to social reform, thus the assumptions and goals of sociology must be left behind in order to create a new global humanity. In the face of the pandemic and climate change, Sociology in Post-Normal Times demands no less than the birth of a global humanity beyond nation states as the precondition for human survival.