Class
Sage Publications London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi x + 198 pp, 1999
Class is a key concept in Cultural Studies. It underpinned the approaches to culture associated with seminal figures in the field such as Hoggart, Williams and Hall. However, in recent years the postmodern turn has called into question the continued relevance of class. Critics argue that history has moved into a stage where classes have disappeared, and that class struggle can no longer be regarded as the motor of history.
This concise and accessible book provides an overview of the current attitudes to class in Cultural Studies and Sociology, and mounts a strong reaffirmation of the concept's centrality to both disciplines. The author argues that the theoretical retreat from class has very often expressed the class interests of its advocates. The book offers readers a critical introduction to the Marxist and Weberian accounts of class and relates its significance to the new social movements.
Class reopens the debates over class and culture very nearly closed down in postmodernism. It is an attempt to restore the concept of class to a focal point in contemporary cultural studies.
'This is a splendid book ... both accessible and advanced' - Jim McGuigan, Reader in Cultural Studies, Loughborough University
'although unexpected given the preoccupations of Cultural Studies over the past decade and a half, ... both welcome and timely' - Tim Edensor, Staffordshire University, Sociology
'There is ... a real need to rethink the issue of class at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Milner's Class makes a significant contribution towards that end.' - John Kirk, Race and Class