The Global Bourgeoisie

The Rise of the Middle Classes in the Age of Empire

Jürgen Osterhammel author Christof Dejung author David Motadel author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Princeton University Press

Published:22nd Nov '19

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The Global Bourgeoisie cover

The first global history of the middle class

While the nineteenth century has been described as the golden age of the European bourgeoisie, the emergence of the middle class and bourgeois culture was by no means exclusive to Europe. The Global Bourgeoisie explores the rise of the middle classes around the world during the age of empire. Bringing together eminent scholars, this landmark essay collection compares middle-class formation in various regions, highlighting differences and similarities, and assesses the extent to which bourgeois growth was tied to the increasing exchange of ideas and goods. The contributors indicate that the middle class was from its very beginning, even in Europe, the result of international connections and entanglements.

Essays are grouped into six thematic sections: the political history of middle-class formation, the impact of imperial rule on the colonial middle class, the role of capitalism, the influence of religion, the obstacles to the middle class beyond the Western and colonial world, and, lastly, reflections on the creation of bourgeois cultures and global social history. Placing the establishment of middle-class society into historical context, this book shows how the triumph or destabilization of bourgeois values can shape the liberal world order.

The Global Bourgeoisie irrevocably changes the understanding of how an important social class came to be.

"This well-conceived work is a must-read for students interested in the global history of the bourgeoisie and its relationship with the emergence of modern capitalism worldwide."---Giampaolo Conte, Journal of European Economic History
"This is a very important book that makes abundantly clear that the emergence of the middle class and bourgeois culture in the nineteenth century was by no means exclusive to Europe or even necessarily emanated from Europe."---Jeffrey Auerbach, World History Connected
"The impressive breadth of the chapters is matched by a sense of analytical depth stressing the connections among global bourgeois elites and comparisons of the characteristics, behaviors, and visions that cut across national cases. . . . Reading The Global Bourgeoisie affirms the view that global history as a subfield has matured remarkably over the last three decades."---J. Laurence Hare, International Social Science Review
"One of the major intellectual projects in central European history during the last two decades of the 20th century was the study of the Bürgertum. . . . Since that time, global history—global in expanding the comparative perspective outside the wealthier countries of the North Atlantic, but also in placing world-wide interactions at the center of historical structures and developments—has become steadily more influential. The current volume, a collection of essays based on a workshop held in Cambridge in 2015, is an attempt to take the Bürgertum project global."---Jonathan Sperber, Francia Recensio
"The anthology offers the reader a fascinating, impressive picture of the 'global bourgeoisie.' Taken together, the cohesive body of contributions—based on original sources such as contemporary travel reports, newspapers, autobiographical texts, scientific publications, and administrative and trading documents—demonstrate that a historical understanding of the middle classes as a European or Western phenomenon does not do justice to its global historical character."---Ruth Nattermann, H Soz Kult
"[The] feat of composing a global social history of the middle classes is deserving of praise and recognition, particularly given that, in the growing field of global history, such a project is no doubt a particularly difficult undertaking. ‘Global history meets social history’ could have been the subtitle of this anthology. The volume is an attempt to move away from a global history of migrants, brokers and global players to a global social history of classes and social groups. . . . Its framework could neither be more fundamental nor more encompassing; it also offers research goals and explanatory models for a future global social history."---Lutz Raphael, Soziopolis
"[An] innovative, intelligent, readable, revolutionary work of global history."---Hartmut Kaelble, Historische Zeitschrift

ISBN: 9780691195834

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

396 pages