The fall and rise of the English upper class: Houses, kinship and capital since 1945

Smith, Daniel ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1004-9487 2023. The fall and rise of the English upper class: Houses, kinship and capital since 1945. Manchester University Press. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

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.

Item Type:	Book
Book Type:	Authored Book
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	In Press
Schools:	Social Sciences (Includes Criminology and Education)
Publisher:	Manchester University Press
ISBN:	978-1-5261-5701-0
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	26 February 2023
Date of Acceptance:	19 December 2022
Last Modified:	13 Apr 2023 11:10
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/157333

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