Imagining the Middle Class: The Political Representation of Class in Britain, c.1780–1840

Dror Wahrman

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511622175

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Imagining the Middle Class

Imagining the Middle Class

The Political Representation of Class in Britain, c.1780–1840

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Dror Wahrman, Indiana University

Publisher:: Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:: January 2010
Print publication year:: 1995
Online ISBN:: 9780511622175
DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511622175

Subjects:: Social and Population History, British History after 1450, History

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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.

‘For all those interested in the question whether class is best seen as a category of social and economic history or as an artefact of political discourse, Imagining the Middle Class is essential - and fascinating - reading.’

Gareth Stedman Jones - King's College, Cambridge

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Imagining the Middle Class

The Political Representation of Class in Britain, c.1780–1840

This Book has been cited by the following publications. This list is generated based on data provided by Crossref.

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Contents

Frontmatter
pp i-viii

Contents
pp ix-x

List of figures
pp xi-xii

Acknowledgments
pp xiii-xiv

1 - Imagining the ‘middle class’: an introduction
pp 1-18

PART I - AGAINST THE TIDE
pp 19-20

Prelude to the 1790s: was the French Revolution a ‘bourgeois revolution’?
pp 21-30

2 - The uses of ‘middle-class’ language in the 1790s
pp 31-73

3 - Friends and foes of the ‘middle class’: the dialogic imagination
pp 74-107

4 - The political differentiation of social language: the debate on the triple assessment, 1797–1798
pp 108-144

Postlude to the 1790s: the uses of ‘bourgeois revolution’
pp 145-154

PART II - THE TUG OF WAR
pp 155-156

5 - Taming the ‘middle class’
pp 157-183

6 - The tug of war and its resolution
pp 184-220

PART III - WITH THE TIDE
pp 221-222

7 - The social construction of the ‘middle class’
pp 223-272

8 - The parallels across the Channel: a French aside
pp 273-297

9 - The debates on the Reform Bill: bowing to a new representation of the ‘middle class’
pp 298-327

10 - Inventing the ever-rising ‘middle class’: the aftermath of 1832
pp 328-376

11 - 1832 and the ‘middle-class’ conquest of the ‘private sphere’
pp 377-408

Epilogue
pp 409-420

Index
pp 421-428

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Imagining the Middle Class

The Political Representation of Class in Britain, c.1780–1840

Book description

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Contents

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