Martin Burke traces the 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 the contested discourse about equality - the way Americans thought and wrote about class, class relations and their meaning in society. Burke explores a 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.
- ISBN10 0226080803
- ISBN13 9780226080802
- Publish Date 16 October 1995 (first published 1 September 1995)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint University of Chicago Press
- Edition New edition
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 322
- Language English
- URL http://wiley.com/remtitle.cgi?isbn=9780226080802