Classes of Labour: Work and Life in a Central Indian Steel Town is a classic in the social sciences. The rigour and richness of the ethnographic data of this book and its analysis is matched only by its literary style. This magnum opus of 732 pages, an outcome of fieldwork covering twenty-one years, complete with diagrams and photographs, reads like an epic novel, difficult to put down. Professor Jonathan Parry looks at a context in which the manual workforce is divided into distinct social classes, which have a clear sense of themselves as separate and interests that are sometimes opposed. The relationship between them may even be one of exploitation; and they are associated with different lifestyles and outlooks, kinship and marriage practices, and suicide patterns. A central concern is with the intersection between class, caste, gender and regional ethnicity, with how class trumps caste in most contexts and with how classes have become increasingly structured as the 'structuration' of castes has declined. The wider theoretical ambition is to specify the general conditions under which the so-called 'working class' has any realistic prospect of unity.

What distinguishes Persistence of Poverty from most other poverty studies is the way in which it conceptualises the problem. This volume offers a variety of alternative analytical perspectives and fresh insights into poverty that are key to addressing the problem. In looking at the day to day lived realities of the poor the volume points out that in order to understand poverty one must take into account the wider system of class and power relations in which it is rooted. This volume suggests that 'democracy in India may be as big a part of the problem as it is of the solution.'

Anthropology today seems to shy away from the big, comparative questions that ordinary people in many societies find compelling. Questions of Anthropology brings these issues back to the centre of anthropological concerns.Individual essays explore birth, death and sexuality, puzzles about the relationship between science and religion, questions about the nature of ritual, work, political leadership and genocide, and our personal fears and desires, from the quest to control the future and to find one's 'true' identity to the fear of being alone. Each essay starts with a question posed by individual ethnographic experience and then goes on to frame this question in a broader, comparative context. Written in an engaging and accessible style, Questions of Anthropology presents an exciting introduction to the purpose and value of Anthropology today.

A major history of the British Empire's early involvement in the Middle East Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798 showed how vulnerable India was to attack by France and Russia. It forced the British Empire to try to secure the two routes that a European might use to reach the subcontinent-through Egypt and the Red Sea, and through Baghdad and the Persian Gulf. Promised Lands is a panoramic history of this vibrant and explosive age. Charting the development of Britain's political interest in the Middle East from the Napoleonic Wars to the Crimean War in the 1850s, Jonathan Parry examines the various strategies employed by British and Indian officials, describing how they sought influence with local Arabs, Mamluks, Kurds, Christians, and Jews. He tells a story of commercial and naval power-boosted by the arrival of steamships in the 1830s-and discusses how classical and biblical history fed into British visions of what these lands might become. The region was subject to the Ottoman Empire, yet the sultan's grip on it appeared weak. Should Ottoman claims to sovereignty be recognised and exploited, or ignored and opposed? Could the Sultan's government be made to support British objectives, or would it always favour France or Russia? Promised Lands shows how what started as a geopolitical contest became a drama about diplomatic competition, religion, race, and the unforeseen consequences of history.

Industrial Work and Life: An Anthropological Reader is a comprehensive anthropological overview of industrialisation in both Western and non-Western societies. Based on contemporary and historical ethnographic material, the book unpacks the 'world of industry' in the context of the shop floor, the family, and the city, revealing the rich social and political texture underpinning economic development. It also provides a critical discussion of the assumptions that inform much of the social science literature on industrialisation and industrial 'modernity'. The reader is divided into four thematic sections, each with a clear and informative introduction: historical development of industrial capitalism; shopfloor organisation; the relationships between the workplace and the home; the teleology of industrial 'modernity' and working-class consciousness. With readings by key writers from a range of backgrounds and disciplines, Industrial Work and Life is the essential introduction to the study of industrialisation in different societies. It will appeal to students across a wide range of subjects including: anthropology, comparative sociology, social history, development studies, industrial relations and management studies. Includes essays by: E.P. Thompson, Aihwa Ong, Jonathan Parry, Thomas C. Smith, Harry Braverman, Michael Burawoy, Huw Beynon, Francoise Zonabend, James Carrier, Leslie Salzinger, Ching Kwan Lee, Ronald Dore, Tom Gill, Carla Freeman, Max Gluckman, James Ferguson, Chitra Joshi, Lisa Rofel, Geert De Neve, Karl Marx, Rajnarayan Chandavarkar, Robert Roberts, June Nash, Christena Turner.

Industrial Work and Life: An Anthropological Reader is a comprehensive anthropological overview of industrialisation in both Western and non-Western societies. Based on contemporary and historical ethnographic material, the book unpacks the 'world of industry' in the context of the shop floor, the family, and the city, revealing the rich social and political texture underpinning economic development. It also provides a critical discussion of the assumptions that inform much of the social science literature on industrialisation and industrial 'modernity'. The reader is divided into four thematic sections, each with a clear and informative introduction: historical development of industrial capitalism; shopfloor organisation; the relationships between the workplace and the home; the teleology of industrial 'modernity' and working-class consciousness. With readings by key writers from a range of backgrounds and disciplines, Industrial Work and Life is the essential introduction to the study of industrialisation in different societies. It will appeal to students across a wide range of subjects including: anthropology, comparative sociology, social history, development studies, industrial relations and management studies. Includes essays by: E.P. Thompson, Aihwa Ong, Jonathan Parry, Thomas C. Smith, Harry Braverman, Michael Burawoy, Huw Beynon, Francoise Zonabend, James Carrier, Leslie Salzinger, Ching Kwan Lee, Ronald Dore, Tom Gill, Carla Freeman, Max Gluckman, James Ferguson, Chitra Joshi, Lisa Rofel, Geert De Neve, Karl Marx, Rajnarayan Chandavarkar, Robert Roberts, June Nash, Christena Turner.

Anthropology today seems to shy away from the big, comparative questions that ordinary people in many societies find compelling. Questions of Anthropology brings these issues back to the centre of anthropological concerns.Individual essays explore birth, death and sexuality, puzzles about the relationship between science and religion, questions about the nature of ritual, work, political leadership and genocide, and our personal fears and desires, from the quest to control the future and to find one's 'true' identity to the fear of being alone. Each essay starts with a question posed by individual ethnographic experience and then goes on to frame this question in a broader, comparative context. Written in an engaging and accessible style, Questions of Anthropology presents an exciting introduction to the purpose and value of Anthropology today.

Classes of Labour: Work and Life in a Central Indian Steel Town is a classic in the social sciences. The rigour and richness of the ethnographic data of this book and its analysis is matched only by its literary style. This magnum opus of 732 pages, an outcome of fieldwork covering twenty-one years, complete with diagrams and photographs, reads like an epic novel, difficult to put down. Professor Jonathan Parry looks at a context in which the manual workforce is divided into distinct social classes, which have a clear sense of themselves as separate and interests that are sometimes opposed. The relationship between them may even be one of exploitation; and they are associated with different lifestyles and outlooks, kinship and marriage practices, and suicide patterns. A central concern is with the intersection between class, caste, gender and regional ethnicity, with how class trumps caste in most contexts and with how classes have become increasingly structured as the 'structuration' of castes has declined. The wider theoretical ambition is to specify the general conditions under which the so-called 'working class' has any realistic prospect of unity.

Bringing together ethnographic case studies of industrial labor from different parts of the world, Industrial Labor on the Margins of Capitalism explores the increasing casualization of workforces and the weakening power of organized labor. This division owes much to state policies and is reflected in local understandings of class. By exploring this relationship, these essays question the claim that neoliberal ideology has become the new 'commonsense' of our times and suggest various propositions about the conditions that create employment regimes based on flexible labor.

Bringing together ethnographic case studies of industrial labor from different parts of the world, Industrial Labor on the Margins of Capitalism explores the increasing casualization of workforces and the weakening power of organized labor. This division owes much to state policies and is reflected in local understandings of class. By exploring this relationship, these essays question the claim that neoliberal ideology has become the new 'commonsense' of our times and suggest various propositions about the conditions that create employment regimes based on flexible labor.

Between the 1830s and 1880s European problems had a profound impact on British politics. Jonathan Parry examines the effect on the British Liberal movement of the most significant of these, such as the 1848 Revolutions, the unification of Italy, the Franco-Prussian War and the Eastern Question, arguing that these European problems made patriotism a major political question: governments were judged by their success in promoting British interests abroad, but also by the purity, potency and 'Englishness' of the political values they represented. This volume makes a major contribution towards understanding three important aspects of nineteenth-century British history: British attitudes to Europe, contemporary notions of national identity, and the nature and dynamic of British Liberalism. Setting foreign and domestic policy discussions in a patriotic framework, Parry offers an analysis of the ideas that influenced the Liberal political coalition and the turning-points affecting its vigour and unity as a political movement.

Between the 1830s and 1880s European problems had a profound impact on British politics. Jonathan Parry examines the effect on the British Liberal movement of the most significant of these, such as the 1848 Revolutions, the unification of Italy, the Franco-Prussian War, and the Eastern Question, arguing that these European problems made patriotism a major political question: governments were judged by their success in promoting British interests abroad, but also by the purity, potency and 'Englishness' of the political values they represented. This volume makes a major contribution towards understanding three important aspects of nineteenth-century British history: British attitudes to Europe, contemporary notions of national identity, and the nature and dynamic of British Liberalism. Setting foreign and domestic policy discussions in a patriotic framework, Parry offers a new analysis of the ideas that influenced the Liberal political coalition and the turning-points affecting its vigour and unity as a political movement.

This book presents the first modern overview of Liberal government during the period when the Liberals dominated British politics. Parry argues that Liberalism was a much more coherent force than has been generally recognised, and goes on to reinterpret the pattern of nineteenth-century political development. The Liberal tradition attached great importance to 'parliamentary government' as the means of reconciling the nation to the exercise of government power, and Parry concentrates on parliamentary politics, seeing it as the best way to understand the Liberals' coherence and success. After a review of the origins of Liberalism before 1830, the book examines in turn the strategies of successive Liberal leaders from Grey to Gladstone and Hartington. Nineteenth-century Liberalism was concerned to maintain the rule of a propertied but socially diverse, rational and civilised elite, in the belief that this was the best means to administer the state economically and equitably, and to promote an industrious and virtuous citizenship. Because of the widespread popularity of the economic, foreign and religious policies followed to this end, and because of the flexible, sometimes cynical, presentational skills of Liberal leaders, the Liberals became the most popular party for much of the century. After 1867 however, argues Parry, Gladstone's crusading politics outweighed the gains achieved by the organisational mobilisation of grass-roots groups and led directly to the break up of the party in 1886. This book therefore not only presents a clear and original introduction to nineteenth-century Liberal politics, but also explores the theory, practice and consequences of Liberal approaches to theconstitution and to religious, moral and social policy.

This volume deals with the way in which money is symbolically represented in a range of different cultures, from South and South-east Asia, Africa and South America. It is also concerned with the moral evaluation of monetary and commercial exchanges as against exchanges of other kinds. The essays cast radical doubt on many Western assumptions about money: that it is the acid which corrodes community, depersonalises human relationships, and reduces differences of quality to those of mere quantity; that it is the instrument of man's freedom, and so on. Rather than supporting the proposition that money produces easily specifiable changes in world view, the emphasis here is on the way in which existing world views and economic systems give rise to particular ways of representing money. But this highly relativistic conclusion is qualified once we shift the focus from money to the system of exchange as a whole. One rather general pattern that then begins to emerge is of two separate but related transactional orders, the majority of systems making some ideological space for relatively impersonal, competitive and individual acquisitive activity. This implies that even in a non-monetary economy these features are likely to exist within a certain sphere of activity, and that it is therefore misleading to attribute them to money. By so doing, a contrast within cultures is turned into a contrast between cultures, thereby reinforcing the notion that money itself has the power to transform the nature of social relationships.

This collection is concerned with the symbolic representation of money in a range of different societies, and more specifically with the moral evaluation of monetary and commercial exchanges. It focuses on the different cultural meanings surrounding monetary transactions, emphasizing the enormous cultural variation in the way money is symbolized and how this symbolism relates to culturally constructed notions of production, consumption, circulation, and exchange.

Why do funerary rituals in India, China, Latin America, and Africa so often involve symbols of rebirth and regeneration and prominent roles for women? Specialists in these lands have collaborated to offer an innovative response that anthropologists, theologians, psychologists, sociologists, and historians will find challenging.