Drawing on legacies of hierarchy and patronage and orienting themselves in very concrete ways to the middle-class ideal of Western modernity, these Brazilian men and women recast the meaning of work and home to set themselves apart from those below them and to project a sense of moral superiority over those above. The author shows how anxieties growing out of this ambivalent position deeply conditioned their role in national politics, from experiments groping toward middle-class populism during the 1930's to the moralistic distrust of institutional politics that characterized the middle-class political outlook after World War II.
Intimate Ironies represents a novel approach to the history of urban middle classes in the twentieth century. Most studies of the middle class have concentrated on culture or political behavior; rarely have the two been brought together. By linking everyday life and politics, the book reinvigorates the study of political history and class in modern Latin American societies, in the process complementing recent studies of organized labor and the industrial elites in Latin America. And by telling an unorthodox story of the middle class, the author challenges the very possibility of a linear, progressive narrative of social development.
Drawing on legacies of hierarchy and patronage and orienting themselves in very concrete ways to the middle-class ideal of Western modernity, these Brazilian men and women recast the meaning of work and home to set themselves apart from those below them and to project a sense of moral superiority over those above. The author shows how anxieties growing out of this ambivalent position deeply conditioned their role in national politics, from experiments groping toward middle-class populism during the 1930's to the moralistic distrust of institutional politics that characterized the middle-class political outlook after World War II.
Intimate Ironies represents a novel approach to the history of urban middle classes in the twentieth century. Most studies of the middle class have concentrated on culture or political behavior; rarely have the two been brought together. By linking everyday life and politics, the book reinvigorates the study of political history and class in modern Latin American societies, in the process complementing recent studies of organized labor and the industrial elites in Latin America. And by telling an unorthodox story of the middle class, the author challenges the very possibility of a linear, progressive narrative of social development.
Intimate Ironies: Modernity and the Making of Middle-Class Lives in Brazil
348
Intimate Ironies: Modernity and the Making of Middle-Class Lives in Brazil
348Hardcover(1)
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780804733601 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Stanford University Press |
| Publication date: | 02/01/1999 |
| Series: | Cultural Memory in the Present Ser. |
| Edition description: | 1 |
| Pages: | 348 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 1.10(d) |
| Lexile: | 1590L (what's this?) |