Origin of middle-class culture

Author: Smelser
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-02-01
Features: "This is a book that benefits readers, a book with compelling arguments, and also a book with elegant writing. It is bound to have a positive impact on both improving 18th-century British local studies and cultural/class studies." — Margaret Hunt (Professor of History, Amherst College), Journal of Social History "Smelser should be praised for his research on the origins of the middle class in Halifax during the late 17th and early 18th centuries. By filling a long-standing gap in the field, his contributions are highly valuable and original." — Theodore Korditschuk (Associate Professor of History, University of Missouri), Interdisciplinary History Journal
This book focuses on Halifax, a crucial textile industry center in northern, exploring several important topics in Western cultural history. The author examines how a growing affluent manufacturing middle-class elite emerged in Halifax as capitalist large-scale textile enterprises began to erode small independent weavers and self-sufficient farmers. This new class developed close ties with the special economic system and capitalist production relations, forming their own views on credit, investment, and money, as well as distinctive consumption patterns for a range of luxury and fashionable goods.
This book also holds certain implications for contemporary China. Social structural changes are always closely linked to social transformation, especially during major societal shifts. By examining the British modern social transition and the Industrial Revolution in relation to the expansion of the middle class, the book not only has academic research value in itself but also provides some reference for China's current social transformation and restructuring.