About the Book

Upper, middle or lower? Which class are you? Perhaps you don’t think class exists any more, but Jeremy Seabrook argues that it most certainly does, just in the way that caste still operates in India – even though it is officially outlawed in that country. Hierarchies and rankings have been with us since the earliest times and they show no sign of disappearing yet. Those at the top would have too much to lose.

And don’t think that ‘class’ is just a British phenomenon. It’s alive everywhere. In the US everyone is ‘middle class’ – except of course those who don’t work, are homeless and poor. They are the ‘underclass’, a fate almost worse than death.

This No-Nonsense Guide gives the full picture of how class analysis emerged from earlier categorizations, how it affected and still affects people’s lives even today in our globalized world.

---

Contents

1. What are 'class' and 'inequality'?

2. The importance of a working class

3. Class: alive and kicking

4. The consistency of change

5. Class and globalization

6. Goodbye to the working class?

7. The enduring injuries of class

8. Caste and class

9. Conclusion

---

About the Author / Editor

Jeremy Seabrook has been a teacher, social worker and lecturer, and has written plays for theater, TV and radio. He has contributed to many journals and newspapers, including the New Internationalist, Third World Network, New Statesman and The Ecologist, and at present writes for The Statesman in Kolkata (Calcutta).

---