Class in Britain - David Cannadine > Reviews > Top Class

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Advantages:	An interesting look at how we see ourselves
Disadvantages:	if you are looking for a light read this may not be for you

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Are the British obsessed with Class? David Cannadine thinks so and in this book he looks in detail at the history of social division and at the rhetoric, politics and reality of the British peoples' perception of their place in society.

The book begins with "The Rise and Fall of Class" which discusses and explains 'Class' as a concept and how its use in explaining and analysing history has fallen in and out of favour in the last twenty or thirty years. The book then goes on, in successive chapters, to examine social division in the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It looks at how the language and perception of social division has changed over this time frame and how these changes both influenced, and were influenced by, their particular society.

In the conclusion to this book David Cannadine looks at "Major, Blair and Beyond" and discusses the future and the possibility, or otherwise, of a "Classless Society"

Obviously I would recommend this book to students of history especially those interested in the history of social division but I would also recommend this book to anyone who is interested in how we see ourselves and our place in society and how we arrived at this perception. I would also recommend it to anyone who is interested in how we are influenced by language as one of the themes of this book is how the language of 'Class' has changed and why. (For example, how did the change from describing social divisions in terms of 'ranks' or 'orders' to describing social division in terms of 'class' that we are familiar with today come about?)

Finally I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in eighteenth, ninetheenth and/or twentieth century English literature as it provides a useful background to understanding the social divisions inherent in many works of literature. For example, I have recently read The Ragged Trousered Philanthopists by Robert Tressell and found it much easier to understand where Tressell was 'coming from' because i was aware of the context of the book having read Class in Britain

Although Class in Britain is an academic study it will, I think, be readable and interesting to the non academic. It is published by Penguin in Paperback. ISBN 0-14-024954-0