Something different for the blog today – I was invited to review a graphic guide to class by Laura Harvey, Sarah Leaney and Danny Noble.
This is a gorgeously-illustrated book – thanks to Random Things Tours and Icon Books for my copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
From the Publisher:
What do we mean by social class in the 21st century?
University of Brighton sociologists Laura Harvey and Sarah Leaney and award-winning comics creator Danny Noble present an utterly unique, illustrated journey through the history, sociology and lived experience of class.
What can class tell us about gentrification, precarious work, the role of elites in society, or access to education? How have thinkers explored class in the past, and how does this affect us today? How does class inform activism and change?
‘Class: A Graphic Guide’ challenges simplistic and stigmatising ideas about working-class people, discusses colonialist roots of class systems, and looks at how class intersects with race, sexuality, gender, disability and age. From the publishers of the bestselling ‘Queer: A Graphic History’, this is a vibrant, enjoyable introduction foor students, community workers, activists and anyone who wants to understand how class functions in their own lives.
My Review:
As a teacher of English, I’m often called on to discuss themes in texts. Thanks to ‘An Inspector Calls’ (among others), class is one of the ideas we have to grapple with – but a pretty mystifying one for most GCSE students. I find it tricky to explain class in a meaningful way for them that applies to both the text and also their own lives.
It turns out that’s because class is a pretty confusing and elusive idea in modern society where there are different markers and categorisation of class than previously. And, even then, sociologists seem to be mainly arguing about it anyway – but at least this book helps you understand the argument! Is it about wealth or risk? Academic theorising or lived experience? Production or consumption? There’s not a lot of clear answers but there is a lot of food for thought.
This book begins by taking readers back through the histories of class and the different ways that inequalities in society have manifested and been normalised into class consciousness. There’s some really interesting and horrifying stuff – eugenics and scientific racism, castes, Victorian poverty maps and the impact of globalisation.
Next up is a whistle-stop tour of the main theorists, before the book focuses on important ideas like labour, land, culture, everyday life. Again – lots of ideas are presented clearly, concisely and with some really handy illustrations. I particularly liked that the writers explored the ways that class ideas intersect with other areas of inequality like gender, disability and race – I think it is really helpful to consider class as just one of the facets of identity because other aspects also impact on a person’s situation and power.
The final sections of the book bring us up to date with current debates on the topic of class and what the future could look like. There’s also a handy set of questions so that readers can consider class in their own lives – where do they experience or even benefit from inequality? I found this last section really interesting – lots of things I hadn’t considered before.
As mentioned, this is a graphic guide and so packed with illustrations. The pictures are often really thoughtfully placed in order to enhance the text – sometimes I grappled with a tricky concept in a paragraph only to look at the picture and think ‘Ohhhhh, that’s how that works!’ I’m a huge fan of the format and will definitely seek out other books in this series – I already have the ‘Sexuality’ one and really find the layout helpful in digesting complex ideas.
The driver for the book is obviously ending inequality – there are calls for activism and to challenge inequalities where they are experienced. While I’m absolutely on side here, I did find this shifted the end of the book from being a study/teaching aid into something more politically charged which was interesting but a bit unusual.
I’d recommend this to anyone who wants to understand how society works, both historically and in the modern day. It’s an interesting topic and there’s a lot packed into this book to think about. Just don’t expect any definitive answers – this was and still is a hotly contested debate about how society is organised, for whose benefit, with what consequences and how it can or should be altered.
If you’d like to buy a copy of this book, please use my affiliate link below – thanks for supporting my blog with any purchases.
Thanks for the blog tour support x