The Conundrum of Class: Public Discourse on the Social Order in America

by Martin J. Burke

Overview

Martin Burke traces the surprisingly complicated history of the idea of class in America from the forming of a new nation to the heart of the Gilded Age.

Surveying American political, social, and intellectual life from the late 17th to the end of the 19th century, Burke examines in detail the contested discourse about equality—the way Americans thought and wrote about class, class relations, and their meaning in society.

Burke explores a remarkable range of thought to establish the boundaries of class and the language used to describe it in the works of leading political figures, social reformers, and moral philosophers. He traces a shift from class as a legal category of ranks and orders to socio-economic divisions based on occupations and income. Throughout the century, he finds no permanent consensus about the meaning of class in America and instead describes a culture of conflicting ideas and opinions.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226080819
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	09/01/1995
Edition description:	1
Pages:	322
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1: The Social Taxonomies of Revolutionary America
2: A Republican Distribution of Citizens
3: The Poetics and Politics of Productive Labor
4: The Rhetoric of Reconcilable Class Conflict
5: The Harmony of Interests: An American Ideology of Social Interdependence
6: The War between Capital and Labor
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

A study examining how Americans have conceptualized and contested conceptions of class in American public discourse from the late 18th through the late 19th century. First considering the 18th century transition from a "socioconstitutional" language of "orders" to a "socioeconomic" language of "classes," it then examines the elaboration during the 19th century of models of class cooperation and of class antagonism. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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