Unholy Pleasure: the idea of social class

What is 'class'? Is it a concept
invented only in the nineteenth
century, and if so, what relationship
does it bear to earlier concepts such as
'order', 'rank', and 'estate'? How did
the English idea of the 'gentleman'
compare with, say, the French concept
of the honnête homme?
These are some of the questions this
book attempts to answer. It explores
the derivation of our ideas about
social class and takes a close look at
our intentions in deploying 'class'
terminology. What did Marx really
mean when he spoke of the
'bourgeois'? Do historians and
sociologists have the right to use the
term 'class', over which they disagree
so bitterly? What are the motives of
those who take 'unholy pleasure' in
finding class amusing? The discussion
ranges from these to more concrete
topics, such as the master-servant
relationship, the popularity of
etiquette books, and the mysterious
significance of the dropped h.
The author's unambiguous
conclusion is that 'class' is a rhetorical
term, invariably used as a form of
social action; and, it is argued, the
concept of class has had its day: great
novelists like Dickens, Kafka, and
Proust show us how to see through it
and beyond it.