The Fall and Rise of the English Upper Class - by Daniel R Smith (Hardcover)

About the Book

Charting the decline and recent resurgence of the landed gentry in British public life, The fall and rise of the English upper class explores how traditionalist worldviews, centred on kinship, inheritance, and the image of the house, have come to shape our politics and culture.

Book Synopsis

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.

From the Back Cover

'The fall and rise of the English upper class 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. 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

'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. Smith shows how the idiom of the house perpetuates a world simultaneously lost and made, problematising Englishness in the most profound way.'
Marilyn Strathern, University of Cambridge

How has England's historic upper class once again come to occupy such a prominent position in English public life? Over the second half of the twentieth century, Great Britain's protracted imperial decline also saw its rigid class structure gradually decay. Since 2016, however, English society has witnessed a surprising resurgence of its upper class, whose status and traditionalist worldviews have come to shape UK politics, culture, and the sense of our collective future.

The fall and rise of the English upper class examines how these traditionalist views are unified by a common thread: English society is imagined through idioms of kinship and inheritance, formed around the densely symbolic image of the house. From 'Establishment' institutions to the ancestral homes of the landed gentry and aristocracy, the message underlying these institutions and cultural ideals is: who inherits the house, inherits England.

By exploring the history of English society's passage to capitalism and its curious class structure, this book examines the writings of upper-class figures - from Rory Stewart to Roger Scruton - to illustrate how anxieties about the future always find their answer in the traditions of the past.

Review Quotes

"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

About the Author

Daniel R. Smith is a Lecturer in Sociology in the School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University