The Fall and Rise of the English Upper Class: Houses, Kinship and Capital Since 1945 (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781526157010)

The fall and rise of the English upper class explores the role traditionalist worldviews, articulated by members of the historic upper-class, have played in British society in the shadow of her imperial and economic decline in the twentieth century. Situating these traditionalist visions alongside Britain's post-Brexit fantasies of global economic resurgence and a socio-cultural return to a green and pleasant land, Smith examines Britain's Establishment institutions, the estates of her landed gentry and aristocracy, through to an appetite for nostalgic products represented with pastoral or pre-modern symbolism. It is demonstrated that these institutions and pursuits play a central role in situating social, cultural and political belonging. Crucially these institutions and pursuits rely upon a form of membership which is grounded in a kinship idiom centred upon inheritance and descent: who inherits the houses of privilege, inherits England.

Author: Daniel R. Smith
ISBN-10: 1526157012
ISBN-13: 9781526157010
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Language: English
Published: 04/18/2023
Pages: 272
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.09lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.75d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 03/01/2024