In Class Paul Fussell explodes the sacred American myth of social equality with eagle-eyed irreverence and iconoclastic wit. This bestselling, superbly researched, exquisitely observed guide to the signs, symbols, and customs of the American class system is always outrageously on the mark as Fussell shows us how our status is revealed by everything we do, say, and own. He describes the houses, objects, artifacts, speech, clothing styles, and intellectual proclivities of American classes from the top to the bottom and everybody -- you'll surely recognize yourself -- in between. Class is guaranteed to amuse and infuriate, whether your class is so high it's out of sight (literally) or you are, alas, a sinking victim of prole drift.
| ||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Product Description
Review
Chicago Sun-Times Highly amusing....a witty, persnickety, and illuminating book....fussell hits the mark.
The Washington Post Move over, William Buckley. Stand back, Gore Vidal. And run for cover, Uncle Sam: Paul Fussell, the nation's newest world-class curmudgeon, is taking aim at The American Experiment.
Wilfrid Sheed The Atlantic A fine prickly pear of a book....Anyone who reads it will automatically move up a class.
Alison Lurie The New York Times Book Review A shrewd and entertaining commentary on American mores today. Frighteningly acute.
The Washington Post Move over, William Buckley. Stand back, Gore Vidal. And run for cover, Uncle Sam: Paul Fussell, the nation's newest world-class curmudgeon, is taking aim at The American Experiment.
Wilfrid Sheed The Atlantic A fine prickly pear of a book....Anyone who reads it will automatically move up a class.
Alison Lurie The New York Times Book Review A shrewd and entertaining commentary on American mores today. Frighteningly acute.
About the Author
Paul Fussell, critic, essayist, and cultural commentator, has recently won the H. L. Mencken Award of the Free Press Association. Among his books are The Great War and Modem Memory, which in 1976 won both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the National Book Award; Abroad: British Literary Traveling Between the Wars; Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War; and, most recently, BAD or, The Dumbing of America. His essays have been collected in The Boy Scout Handbook and Other Observations and Thank God for the Atom Bomb and Other Essays. He lives in Philadelphia, where he teaches English at the University of Pennsylvania.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
Although most Americans sense that they live within an extremely complicated system of social classes and suspect that much of what is thought and done here is prompted by considerations of status, the subject has remained murky. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Although most Americans sense that they live within an extremely complicated system of social classes and suspect that much of what is thought and done here is prompted by considerations of status, the subject has remained murky. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By BiCoastal
Format:Paperback
This is a delicious sardonic read that you will not forget whether you find the book shallow and deprived of real "research" findings or not. Move up (or, as the author suggests more likely, move down) in the class ladder, but above all, remember to be yourself!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book is great if class and the dynamics of society interest you. I laughed out loud several times and even questioned my own behavior. The author, Paul Fussell, is someone whom I would consult on any variety of matters as he is obviously well educated. This book is not to be taken quite literally but nonetheless it is educational. I only wish more people would strive to be at least upper-middles.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
Reading this book in my mid-20s -- after surviving college and my first few experiments with employment -- I felt as though I had stumbled upon a Rosetta stone of sorts: a complete schema of the underlying language of American society.
Fussell's meticulous, razor-sharp, and frequently hilarious dissection of American class distinctions (and the tortured ways in which we all struggle with those distinctions) brought into focus what had previously been -- to my eyes -- a hidden language, or, perhaps, an invisible hierarchy.
Although slightly dated in its references, I can't recommend this book more highly.
Remember when you were a kid, how crazy the adult world seemed? How myopic and insane grown-ups were? How strange and inpenetrable their customs and culture? Did you ever wish someone would just sit down and explain to you what the heck was going on?
Here's a book that explains it all -- with insight, humor, and an acid-tipped sense of irony.
Fussell is no snob -- if anything, he skewers the upper classes as gleefully as he mocks the lumpen bourgeoisie. He also provides an escape hatch from the claustrophobic world of status accumulation -- his newly minted X-Class (the inspiration, btw, for Douglas Coupland's Generation X).
Very few books change the way you see the world, or, perhaps, allow you to see the world more clearly. This -- for me -- was one.
Want to see more reviews on this item?
›
Go to Amazon.com to see all 161 reviews
4.1 out of 5 stars
Most recent customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Fussell's book in need of clarification
I agree with both the positive and negative comments addressed in these reviews; it's funny, observant, mean-spirited, and haphazardly written. Read more
Published on Aug 10 2004 by Daniel Ho
4.0 out of 5 stars
Can Class become a classic?
Class is a studied, hilarious, yet tongue-in-cheek dissection of the American social class system. It exposes such fundamentally American (and hence, germane) misconceptions on... Read more
Published on Mar 14 2004 by Yan Timanovsky
3.0 out of 5 stars
Intelligent, but unpalatably nasty
The greatest irony of this admittedly meanspirited but smart little satirical study might seem initially that, in the intervening twenty years since it was published, it has become... Read more
Published on Jan 27 2004 by Jay Dickson
2.0 out of 5 stars
funny, cruel
Fussell himself admitted that this book was possibly too mean-spirited, and his title points out that it really isn't about class but status. Read more
Published on Dec 30 2003 by Drunken Orangetree
5.0 out of 5 stars
High Giggle Factor
Author Paul Fussell swings from contempt to sympathy as he observes the behavior of different classes. Read more
Published on Sep 7 2003 by southpaw68
5.0 out of 5 stars
On the money
Yes. Buy and read this book. Yes, it is over 20 years old, but it remains maddeningly correct, indeed the blueprint for Brooks's Bobos. Read more
Published on Aug 10 2003 by E. M Massanet
4.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting...interesting indeed.
Interesting little book. Its not definitive in any sort of way but it still made me think about thing. Outdated though, quite shame he can't write another. Read more
Published on Aug 10 2003
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Book of Humor
The first thing that readers should know about this book is that it should be regarded as a book of humor, not a serious book about class or status in America. Read more
Published on Aug 7 2003
1.0 out of 5 stars
This book is over 20 years old
The world according to Fussell in 1982 is quite a bit different than the current century. The author himself states in an early chapter that outward indications of class change... Read more
Published on July 31 2003 by Sean Franks
2.0 out of 5 stars
Note: Reviewer shares many of author's frustrations
this book makes you hate other people (and yes, i have a sense of humor).
Published on July 28 2003
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
