Class Matters: The Strange Career of an American Delusion

by Steve Fraser

A uniquely personal yet deeply informed exploration of the hidden history of class in American life

From the decks of the Mayflower straight through to Donald Trump’s “American carnage,” class has always played a role in American life. In this remarkable work, Steve Fraser twines our nation’s past with his own family’s history, deftly illustrating how class matters precisely because Americans work so hard to pretend it doesn’t.

He examines six signposts of American history—the settlements at Plymouth and Jamestown; the ratification of the Constitution; the Statue of Liberty; the cowboy; the “kitchen debate” between Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev; and Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech—to explore just how pervasively class has shaped our national conversation. With a historian’s intellectual command and a riveting narrative voice, Fraser interweaves these examples with his own past—including his false arrest on charges of planning to blow up the Liberty Bell during the Civil Rights era—to tell a story both urgent and timeless.

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction, American History, Social Justice, Economics

304 pages, Hardcover

Published March 20, 2018

About the author

Steve Fraser is an author, an editor, and a historian whose many publications include the award-winning books Labor Will Rule: Sidney Hillman and the Rise of American Labor and Every Man a Speculator: A History of Wall Street in American Life. He is senior lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania and cofounder of the American Empire Project, Metropolitan Books. He has written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Nation, and the American Prospect.

Reviews

[Sid Groeneman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Class Matters is an unusual blend of chapter essays about social class in America with author Steven Fraser's personal life experiences. Although the blend is not always well integrated, it matters little, as the essays, about different periods and regions in the country, are interesting and original enough to stand on their own. As the title asserts, the unifying theme is that class has always mattered in American history despite the prevalent myth to the contrary--a myth that the controlling classes have relentlessly advanced and that ordinary Americans have wanted to accept. I found the chapter about the Statue of Liberty and its connection to then dominant immigration attitudes especially enlightening.

Some reviewers have praised Fraser's writing style. I found it at times a bit over the top and hard to interpret, requiring a second reading to fully understand. Nevertheless, the book is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in the topic. By the way, the book is also available in paperback.

[Theresa Jehlik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fraser explores the myth of America as a classless society in this collection of essays. He combines research across all the social science fields as well as his personal history to explore the six events that make up this work. His signposts across our history are the Plymouth and Jamestown settlements, the ratification of the Constitution, the Statue of Liberty, the cowboy, the "kitchen debate" between Richard Nixon and Nikita Krushchev, and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. His carefully constructed arguments delineate the original intentions or motivations of each signpost and the mythology that has since been created around each event. Well-written and fast moving, Fraser makes complex theory accessible to the non-academic. I wish he been my American History professor when I was in college.

[Cat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very insightful book, for those who believe us to be a classless society in which anyone can rise to the top. Nothing new for me here, but I did enjoy reading the book and learned a few more things along the way. Fraser's book is well researched and seems well thought out. He did a lot of consulting with experts in their fields to put this book together. And it is a fascinating story which everyone should read. If you don;t believe this, pick up a copy, read it, and then you'll understand why we are where we are.
I received a Kindle Arc in exchange for a fair review from Netgalley.

[Jerry Wall · Rating 1 out of 5]

Subtitle is The Strange career of an American Delusion
America wanted to be a classless society but it never worked out, thus delusion.
Exemplar would be the cowboy with his independence, creativity, and lonely existence
supposedly of a class by himself but having such an rough life, lack of stead income, etc.
etc.
Many other examples, but all leaving us with a class system
Talks some of Henry George from 1800s and his attempts to think through the problems of class.
who was also not actualized though has many good ideas.

[Remi · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was extremely insightful and proves, yet again, how history is ever applicable to modern life. My only criticism is the use of archaic or needlessly complex words. At times it felt like a high school essay that a student went nuts on with a thesaurus.

[dimwig · Rating 2 out of 5]

i finished this months ago & promptly forgot all about it. decent book tho.

[Mills College Library]

305.50973 F8426 2018