Middle Classes: Their Rise and Sprawl

by Rachel Bell (Author), Simon Gunn (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2003

  $3.40

  Afternoon tea, the Women's Institute, Mrs Beeton, department stores, suburbia, seaside holidays and cycling clubs - all preserves of the great middle class. But where did the middle classes come from? And what makes a person middle class today? Although the term 'middle class' is part of our everyday language, the middle class has not been a feature of the British social scene from time immemorial. Drawing on the memories and life stories of individuals and families, as well as the words of distinguished historians and social commentators, this fascinating portrait of a people traces the roots of middle-class values in Victorian England through to the great educational reforms of the twentieth century. Panoramic and personal, this book provides a compelling picture of this influential social group and looks at what their future might be.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2002

  $6.16

  The rise of the English middle class from the mid-nineteenth century onwards is one of the great untold stories of social history. Many of the most profound cultural changes of the twentieth century - the rise of concepts like professionalism, privacy, respectability, consumerism, the centrality of home - were driven by the inexorable expansion of the suburban middle class. The original BBC2 series (broadcast in early 2001) was rapturously received, combining interviews from over 50 people telling their own stories with comment and analysis by prominent historians and sociologists. The book will share this structure but will explore the subject in much greater depth.