What's Class Got to Do With It? : American Society in the Twenty-First Century. This item is unavailable.What's Class Got to Do With It? : American Society in the Twenty-First Century

"Whether in regard to the economy or issues of war and peace, class is central to our everyday lives. Yet class has not been as visible as race or gender, not nearly as much a part of our conversations and sense of ourselves as these and other 'identities.' We are of course all individuals, but our individuality and personal life chances are shaped―limited or enhanced―by the economic and social class in which we have grown up and in which we exist as adults."―from the Introduction

The contributors to this volume argue that class identity in the United States has been hidden for too long. Their essays, published here for the first time, cover the relation of class to race and gender, to globalization and public policy, and to the lives of young adults. They describe how class, defined in terms of economic and political power rather than income, is in fact central to Americans' everyday lives. What's Class Got to Do with It? is an important resource for the new field of working class studies.

Michael Zweig is Professor of Economics and founder of the Center for Study of Working Class Life at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Among his books is The Working Class Majority: America's Best Kept Secret, also from Cornell.