The Rise of Professional Society: England Since 1880 / Edition 2

by Harold Perkin

Overview

The Rise of Professional Society lays out a stimulating and controversial framework for the study of British society, challenging accepted paradigms based on class analysis. Perkins argues that the non-capitalist "professional class" represents a new principle of social organization based on trained expertise and meritocracy, a "forgotten middle class" conveniently overlooked by classical social theorists.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415301787
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	10/31/2002
Edition description:	Revised
Pages:	632
Product dimensions:	5.44(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Harold Perkin is Professor Emeritus of History at Northwestern University, Evanstone, Illinois; Professor Emeritus at Lancaster University and Honorary Professor at Cardiff University. He is author of numerous books including The Origins of English Society 1780-880 (1969), The Age of the Railway (1970) and The Third Revolution (1996).

Table of Contents

Introduction to the 2002 edition Preface to the first edition 1 The meaning of professional society 1 Class versus hierarchy 2 Professional rivalries and the state 3 The culmination of the Industrial Revolution 2 The zenith of class society 1 The height of inequality 2 The climacteric of British capitalism 3 The decline of Liberal England 4 The fear of the poor 3 A segregated society 1 The rich and the powerful 2 The riven middle class 3 Lives apart: the remaking of the working class 4 Class society and the professional ideal 1 The professional social ideal 2 Professionalism and property 3 The defence of property 4 The professional ideal and the origins of the welfare state 5 The crisis of class society 1 The aborted pre-war crisis 2 The supreme test of class society 3 The crisis averted 6 A halfway house: society in war and peace 1 The great divide, 1914–18 2 Social change between the wars 3 The old order changeth 4 ‘Money isn’t everything’ 5 Spiralists and burgesses 6 The road from Wigan Pier 7 Towards a corporate society 1 The corporate economy 2 The corporate state 3 The corporate society 8 The triumph of the professional ideal 1 The professional ideal and the decline of the industrial spirit 2 Professionalism and human capital 3 The condescension of professionalism 9 The plateau of professional society 1 The Second World War and the revolution in expectations 2 ‘Most of our people have never had it so good’ 3 The bifurcation of the professional ideal 4 The persistence of class 10 The backlash against professional society 1 Professionalism under fire 2 Rolling back the state? 3 The resurgence of the free market ideology 4 Britain’s economic decline and the political dilemma

Editorial Reviews

'A true magnum opus. No social historian can afford not to read it.' – Asa Briggs

'Accessible to the general reader, indispensable to the scholar and a solid achievement of synthesis and clarity.' – The Observer

From the Publisher