The problems of class analysis and the division of labour in industrial societies are of fundamental importance in the social sciences. Designed as a testimonial volume for Ilya Neustadt, Social Class and the Division of Labour provides a comprehensive discussion of the central issues of this debate. All the essays in this volume attempt to integrate theoretical debate and empirical investigation: some focus directly on the division of labour, considering especially Marxist views of its relation to class domination, while others are more concerned with the labour process as it currently exists in capitalist productions. The volume as a whole demonstrates forcibly that class divisions and class conflict can only be properly understood in conjunction with an elaborated analysis of the division of labour. The book represents a major contribution to class theory and analysis which will attract considerable attention amongst sociologists and economists, and become a standard textbook for undergraduates in these subjects.

An analysis of change in the middle levels of the American class structure. Dr Mackenzie's study is designed to test the common assertion in the press and in recent American academic sociology that the line separating the working class from the middle class is becoming increasingly blurred, leading to the embourgeoisement of large numbers of skilled blue-collar workers. In the course of his research he conducted intensive interviews with skilled craftsmen, routine white-collar workers and managers. (The latter were seen as being a middle class 'control group'.) The survey was carried out in Providence, Rhode Island. The author's central conclusion is that class barriers are not breaking down in American society at the present time - that large numbers of blue collar workers are not becoming absorbed into the middle class. Rather, it is suggested, craftsmen are in a class by themselves, isolated both from the traditional working class and the established middle class.