Imagining the middle class : the political representation of class in Britain, c. 1780-1840
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Imagining the middle class : the political representation of class in Britain, c. 1780-1840
Cambridge University Press, 1995
- : hbk
- : pbk
Available at / 46 libraries
-
No Libraries matched.
- Remove all filters.
Note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Why and how did the British people come to see themselves as living in a society centred around a middle class? The answer provided by Professor Wahrman challenges most prevalent historical narratives: the key to understanding changes in conceptualisations of society, the author argues, lies not in underlying transformations of social structure - in this case industrialisation, which supposedly created and empowered the middle class - but rather in changing political configurations. Firmly grounded in a close reading of an extensive array of sources, and supported by comparative perspectives on France and America, the book offers a nuanced model for the interplay between social reality, politics, and the languages of class.
Table of Contents
- 1. Imagining the 'middle class': an introduction
- Part I. Against the Tide: Prelude to the 1790s: was the French Revolution a 'bourgeois revolution'?
- 2. The uses of 'middle class' language in the 1790s
- 3. Friends and foes of the 'middle class': the dialogic imagination
- 4. The political differentiation of social language: the debate on the triple assessment
- Postlude to the 1790s: the uses of 'bourgeois revolution'
- Part II. The Tug of War: 5. Taming the 'middle class'
- 6. The tug of war and its resolution
- Part III. With the Tide: 7. The social construction of the middle class
- 8. The parallels across the Channel: a French aside
- 9. The debates on the Reform Bill: bowing to a new representation of the 'middle class'
- 10. Inventing the ever-rising 'middle class': the aftermath of 1832
- 11. 1832 and the 'middle class' conquest of the 'private sphere'
- Epilogue.
by "Nielsen BookData"