The Rise and Fall of Class in Britain

This well written and thoughtful book is a analysis of the concept of class in recent British history. Cannandine is not pursuing detailed historical sociology but is rather primarily interested in how class was/is conceptualized. Cannandine traces the history of different conceptions of class. This is more important than it sounds because Cannandine shows that different conceptions of class often had significant political and social consequences. Cannandine deals also with some historigraphic issues. Indeed, the title of this book refers less to historical realities than it does to the way historians have conceptualized class in analyzing recent British history. The 'Rise' of Cannandine's title refers mainly to an essentially Marxist conception of British history since the 18th century put forward by historians like EP Thompson. The 'Fall' of the title refers to the failure of the simple Marzist model to actually describe historic reality. For Cannandine, class is the conceptualization of social stratfication and inequality. This is clearly related to economic realities but generally much more complex. The Marxist (though as Cannandine points out, Marx took his concept from classical British economists like Smith) concept of class as determined by individual relationship to the means of production is one concept. Cannandine describes 3 basic concepts of class in recent British history. The first and arguably most important is the concept of class as hierarchy; a finely differentiated and graded ladder of social status. A second is a tripartite division of society - upper, middle, and lower. The last is a dichotomous us versus them concept. Cannandine traces the prominence of these different concepts at different points in British history, how closely they actually described the phenomena they were addressing, and perhaps most interesting, how these concepts were deployed in and affected political life. Like Cannandine's other work, this analysis is very well documented and the quality of writing is excellent. In addition to the main theme, this book contains a number of other interesting comments, such as Cannandine's discussion of Margaret Thatcher and an insightful analysis of the role of the empire in maintaining the British sense of hierarchy. The concept of class as hierarchy emerges as not only the most important but also the most characteristically British. Maintained not only by economic stratification but also by status markers related to the persistence of the aristocracy and the monarchy, class as hierarchy commands the allegiance of a remarkable spectrum of British society.