The Fall and Rise of the English Upper Class

"An astonishing exploration of a contemporary moment – the one that exploded with Brexit -- this book creeps up on late modernity in a way that no direct address could. Who would think to juxtapose aristocracy, inheritance and nationhood with change, empiricism and contingency through the vernacular idiom of ‘the house’? Smith shows how the idiom of the house perpetuates a world simultaneously lost and made, problematising Englishness in the most profound way."
Professor Dame Marilyn Strathern, University of Cambridge

"Much has been written about the supposed downfall of the aristocracy. But that doesn’t explain their ongoing presence in society, nor our continued fascination with them. The Fall and Rise of Britain's Upper-Classes makes a distinct intervention into the sociology of the elites through the concept of ‘the house society’. Arguing that ‘idioms’ of the aristocratic classes ‘haunt’ contemporary Britain, Smith argues that capitalism in England arose out of a landed aristocracy, and so logics of capital have always already been imbricated by inheritance, kinship and traditionalism. The book deftly combines a huge range of case studies, from close readings of political memoirs to an ethnography of a bookshop, to contend that our national imagination still hinges upon this privileged group. An important contribution to research on social class and privilege, Smith’s book is a rare account of the group whose power is in its invisibility: the aristocracy."
Laura Clancy, Lecturer in Media at Lancaster University and author of Running the family firm: How the royal family manages its image and our money

CHOICE: Highly recommended