可借阅:*
链接这些题名
已订购
摘要
摘要
Americans like to believe that they live in a classless society. Most Americans defiantly identify themselves as middle class, although economic inequality is greater in the United States than in most advanced Western nations. Offering an important revision of conventional wisdom, Stanley Aronowitz demonstrates that class remains a potent force in the United States. Aronowitz shows that class need not be understood simply in terms of socioeconomic stratification, but rather as the power of social groups to make a difference. Aronowitz explains that social groups from different economic and political positions become ruling classes when they make demands that change the course of history. For instance, labor movements, environmental activists, and feminists have engaged in class struggles as their demands for power reconfigured the social order. The emerging global justice movements--comprised of activists from heterogeneous social and political backgrounds--also show potential for class formation. Written by a prominent scholar and social activist, this book offers a stunning reconceptualization of the meaning and significance of class in modern America.
评论 (2)
Choice 评论
This splendid, scholarly, yet highly readable analysis focuses primarily on social class formations and movements in the US. City Univ. of New York sociologist Aronowitz writes a critical and impassioned brand of sociology reminiscent of the brilliant radical C. Wright Mills. His is a Marxist-tinged perspective, but one that creatively revises classical Marxist theory by incorporating carefully crafted concepts of "social formations" and "social movements" into his reflections. The author writes with apparent authority, and the book is filled with rich and relevant substantive, historical, and even philosophical materials. Eight chapters deal with topics such as class theory, the issue of a ruling class in the US, the influence of globalization on class, the relationship between the growing ecological crisis and class, and a final chapter, "Utopia on Hold," in which Aronowitz effectively takes on Francis Fukuyama's influential thesis to the effect that we are approaching, if not at, the "end of history." Finally, this work is highly current, having been completed after the events of 9/11. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. W. P. Nye Hollins University
《图书馆杂志》(Library Journal )书评
"Class power sets the framework of what is politically possible," observes sociologist/ activist Aronowitz (Graduate Ctr., CUNY; coeditor, Paradigm Lost: State Theory Reconsidered) in his most recent in a long line of books on social politics. Aronowitz is both scholarly (abundant notes support his arguments) and personal (he uses the first person and makes no bones about his own beliefs) as he dispels the myth of America as a classless society, a land of "equal opportunity." Frequently citing predecessor and fellow sociologist C. Wright Mills, Aronowitz goes beyond traditional concepts of social stratification by including discussion of social groups (e.g., feminists, environmentalists, and labor movements) and their "historicity" (the conditions that led to their creation). By understanding the inherent power of these groups, we see how they can implement change. Readers may find this book somewhat sprawling; Aronowitz's range is wide (he includes commentary on international power blocs) and opinionated (he takes on, for example, the "Scions of Old Money" and their presumed acceptance-no matter their qualifications-to Ivy League schools). But if this book is provocative, it is also erudite. Appropriate for larger public, academic, and special libraries.-Ellen Gilbert, Princeton, NJ (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
目录
| Acknowledgments | p. vii |
| Introduction | p. 1 |
| 1 Class Matters | p. 12 |
| 2 Time and Space in Class Theory | p. 38 |
| 3 History and Class Theory | p. 63 |
| 4 Does the United States Have a Ruling Class? | p. 92 |
| 5 National and International Blocs | p. 122 |
| 6 The New Social Movements and Class | p. 141 |
| 7 Ecology and Class | p. 171 |
| 8 Utopia on Hold | p. 199 |
| Notes | p. 231 |
| Index | p. 253 |