1993/04/01 by Mike Savage · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Historical Gender and Feminism Studies #Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes #Political and Economic history of UK and US
paper · doi:10.1017/s0963926800010002
openalex publication_date 1993/04/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
For much of the 1970s and early 1980s historians using an urban focus to analyse social class, social stratification and political conflict led the field. The work of John Foster, Geoffrey Crossick, Robert Gray, Patrick Joyce and others helped set an agenda to which all social historians responded. Today research of a similar type can easily be found, but even whilst this shows a high degree of conceptual sophistication and empirical rigour it seems less central to the discipline and to the broad concerns of social history than was the case even a decade ago. In this speculative paper I reflect on some of the reasons for this and consider the contemporary prospects for studies of the relationship between urban history and social class.