According to their national myth, all Americans are "middle class," but rarely has such a widely-used term been so poorly defined. These fascinating essays provide much-needed context to the subject of class in America.
According to our national myth, all Americans are "middle class," but rarely has such a widely-used term been so poorly defined. Do we identify the middle class by a house in the suburbs, a white collar job, or a political outlook that is right-of-center? Or is the middle class in fact more complex?
In an effort to bring greater clarity to our understanding of what it means to be middle class, the scholars assembled in "The Middling Sorts" approach the concept as a group of culturally contested ideas, practices, and things. Whether they focus on the antebellum middle class, male corporate culture, or the subtle resistance of Cold War housewives, the contributors - who are among the hottest social and cultural historians of the United States at work today - provide much-needed context to the subject of class in America.
"These compelling essays recover the history of the American middle classes by replacing rigid dichotomies and fixed categories with a much needed emphasis on multiplicity and change. Exploring how the 'middle sorts' mingled such matters as democracy and ambition, morality and consumption, entrepreneurial values and corporate ideals, the sacred and the secular, the authors also productively dismantle the boundaries between cultural, economic, and social history. The result is a volume filled with an assortment of riches." -- Joan Shelley Rubin, University of Rochester
"Scholars have for far too long derided and caricatured the American middle class. With its complex treatment of complicated people,
The Middling Sorts should prove a landmark in the historical reassessment of middle-class Americans." -- Catherine McNicol Stock, Connecticut College
"This volume demonstrates the richness of the emerging field of middle-class studies and will help define its agenda." -- Journal of American History
