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The first global history of the middle class While the nineteenth century has been described as the golden age of the European bourgeoisie, the emergence of the middle class and bourgeois culture was by no means exclusive to Europe. The Global Bourgeoisie explores the rise of the middle classes around the world during the age of empire. Bringing together eminent scholars, this landmark essay collection compares middle-class formation in various regions, highlighting differences and similarities, and assesses the extent to which bourgeois growth was tied to the increasing exchange of ideas and goods. The contributors indicate that the middle class was from its very beginning, even in Europe, the result of international connections and entanglements.Essays are grouped into six thematic sections: the political history of middle-class formation, the impact of imperial rule on the colonial middle class, the role of capitalism, the influence of religion, the obstacles to the middle class beyond the Western and colonial world, and, lastly, reflections on the creation of bourgeois cultures and global social history. Placing the establishment of middle-class society into historical context, this book shows how the triumph or destabilization of bourgeois values can shape the liberal world order.The Global Bourgeoisie irrevocably changes the understanding of how an important social class came to be -- 1. Worlds of the Bourgeoisie / Dejung, Christof / Motadel, David / Osterhammel, Jürgen -- PART I. State and Class -- 2. The Rise of the Middle Class in Iran before the Second World War / Chehabi, H.E. -- 3. “The Great Middle Class” in the Nineteenth-Century United States / Gräser, Marcus -- 4. Population Planning for a Global Middle Class / Bashford, Alison -- PART II. Colonialism and Class -- .5 Modernity, Print Media, and the Middle Class in Colonial East Africa / Hunter, Emma -- 6. Cosmopolitan Consumption: Domesticity, Cooking, and the Middle Class in Colonial India / Ray, Utsa -- 7. Bureaucratic Civilization: Emancipation and the Global British Middle Class / Scanlan, Padraic X. -- PART III. Capitalism and Class -- 8. Modern Business and the Rise of the Japanese Middle Classes / Hunter, Janet -- 9. The Semiperipheral Hand: Middle-Class Service Professionals of Imperial Capitalism / Manjapra, Kris -- PART IV. Religion and the Betterment of the World -- 10. The Muslim Bourgeoisie and Philanthropy in the Late Ottoman Empire / Mestyan, Adam -- 11. Worlds of a Muslim Bourgeoisie: The Sociocultural Milieu of the Islamic Minority in Interwar Germany / Motadel, David -- 12. From Global Civilizing Missions to Racial Warfare: Class Conflicts and the Representation of the Colonial World in European Middle-Class Thought / Dejung, Christof -- PART V. Failures and Fringes -- 13. Asymmetric Globality and South American Narratives of Bourgeois Failure / Parker, David S. -- 14. The “Missing” or “Forgotten” Middle Class of Tsarist Russia / Smith, Alison K. -- 15. Chinese Middle Classes between Empire and Revolution / Dabringhaus, Sabine / Osterhammel, Jürgen -- PART VI. Global Social History -- 16. Race, Culture, and Class: European Hegemony and Global Class Formation, circa 1800–1950 / Drayton, Richard --
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