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"The conventional wisdom is that a growing middle class will give rise to democracy. Yet the middle classes of the developing world have grown at a remarkable pace over the past two decades, and much of this growth has taken place in countries that remain nondemocratic. Rosenfeld explains this phenomenon by showing how modern autocracies secure support from key middle-class constituencies. Drawing on original surveys, interviews, archival documents, and secondary sources collected from nine months in the field, she compares the experiences of recent post-communist countries, including Russia, the Ukraine, and Kazakhstan, to show that under autocracy, state efforts weaken support for democrac...
The Middle Class ABC is the book loos, bedside tables and farmers markets the length and breadth of the land have been waiting for - a humorous celebration of the facts (some are even true) and foibles, manners and mores, peccadilloes and armadillos, of contemporary British middle-class life. Letter by letter, the occasionally clever, witty and absurd observations and cartoons will ring true for all good Middlings. WARNING: you might even recognize your own or your friends' choices of children's names, foodie fads, holiday destinations . . . Crammed with affectionately teasing jokes and some truly dreadful puns, this is a book to enjoy at any time of the year in the course of going about one's business.
A hilarious collection of the most agonizing real-life inconveniences faced by the iPhone-losing, polenta-burning, Eurostar-missing middle classes, illustrated by Matt Blease ‘My pug has hiccups’ ‘I've given myself a croissant headache’ ‘I just dropped batteries in my quinoa’ ‘Think I’ve forgotten how to ski’ Can't find your melon baller? Wrestling with wrapping paper? Struggling to figure out how to properly pronounce quinoa?? Get your daily trials into perspective with this hilarious collection of the top #MiddleClassProblems from around the globe. Since 2010, Benjamin Lee has run the hugely popular @MiddleClassProb account, and in this book he has selected the all-time highlights.
Why have so many middle-class Americans encountered so much financial trouble? In this classic analysis of hard-pressed families, the authors discover that financial stability for many middle-class Americans is all too fragile. The authors consider the changing cultural and economic factors that threaten financial security and what they imply for the future vitality of the middle class. A new preface examines the persistent and new threats that have emerged since the original publication. "[A] fascinating, alarming study. . . . [This] chilling diagnosis of middle-class affliction demonstrates that we all may be only a job loss, medical problem or credit card indulgence away from the downward spiral leading to bankruptcy."--Publishers Weekly "A well-designed and carefully executed study."--Andrew Greeley, University of Chicago "The Fragile Middle Class, a well-written work of social science that is about as gripping as the genre gets, forces us to reevaluate notions about consumerism."--American Prospect
'A wonderfully enjoyable history of the changing fortunes of the middle orders over the past 500 years. A magisterial survey of the entire British class system, filled with richly detailed observation of the social differences on which it has thrived' Sunday Times 'Comprehensive, engaging, sharp-eyed and fair-minded. A treasure trove for anyone who wants to know how we get from yokels to 'Marks and Sparks plonk' Daily Telegraph 'An enchanting compendium of the games the English play, and the anxieties, frictions and resentments engendered in the pursuit of status' Times Literary Supplement This is the enthralling story of the great powerhouse of British history - the middle class. The death ...
Taking apart the ideology of the "middle class" Tidings of a shrinking middle class in one part of the world and its expansion in another absorb our attention, but seldom do we question the category itself. We Have Never Been Middle Class proposes that the middle class is an ideology. Tracing this ideology up to the age of financialization, it exposes the fallacy in the belief that we can all ascend or descend as a result of our aspirational and precautionary investments in property and education. Ethnographic accounts from Germany, Israel, the USA and elsewhere illustrate how this belief orients us, in our private lives as much as in our politics, toward accumulation-enhancing yet self-undermining goals. This original meshing of anthropology and critical theory elucidates capitalism by way of its archetypal actors.
Why the United States has developed an economy divided between rich and poor and how racism helped bring this about. The United States is becoming a nation of rich and poor, with few families in the middle. In this book, MIT economist Peter Temin offers an illuminating way to look at the vanishing middle class. Temin argues that American history and politics, particularly slavery and its aftermath, play an important part in the widening gap between rich and poor. Temin employs a well-known, simple model of a dual economy to examine the dynamics of the rich/poor divide in America, and outlines ways to work toward greater equality so that America will no longer have one economy for the rich an...
Pakistan’s presence in the outside world is dominated by images of religious extremism and violence. These images—and the narratives that interpret them—inform events in the international realm, but they also twist back around to shape local class politics. In The New Pakistani Middle Class, Ammara Maqsood focuses on life in contemporary Lahore, where she unravels these narratives to show how central they are for understanding competition and the quest for identity among middle-class groups. Lahore’s traditional middle class has asserted its position in the socioeconomic hierarchy by wielding significant social capital and dominating the politics and economics of urban life. For this...
An indispensable and humorous must-read - 'The Middle Class Handbook' analyses more than 100 tribes and sub-tribes of Britain's battered and bruised society.
This book analyses how racism and anti-racism affects Black British middle class cultural consumption, incorporating insights from critical race theory and cultural sociology.