Democratic Subjects The Self and the Social in Nineteenth-Century England [Paperback]

A controversial study of class and social identity in nineteenth-century England.This pioneering and original study explores critically the nature of class identity by looking at the formation and influence of two men (Edwin Waugh and John Bright) who are considered representative of what working class and middle class meant in nineteenth-century England.This pioneering and original study explores critically the nature of class identity by looking at the formation and influence of two men (Edwin Waugh and John Bright) who are considered representative of what working class and middle class meant in nineteenth-century England.This pioneering and highly original study explores critically the nature of class identity by looking at the formation and influence of two men (Edwin Waugh and John Bright) who are taken as representative of what working class and middle class meant in England in the nineteenth century. The book points the way forward to a new history of democracy as an imagined entity. It represents a deepening of the author's engagement with post-modernist theory, in the process offering a critique of the conservatism and complacency of much academic history, particularly in Britain.Introduction; Part I. The Sorrows of Edwin Waugh: A Study in Working Class Identity: 1. Young Edwin; 2. The struggle for the moral life; 3. The ends of the moral life; 4. The cult of the heart; 5. 'God bless these poor folks'; 6. The legacy of Edwin Waugh; Part II. John Bright and the English People: A Study in Middle Class Identity: 7. Plain man's prophesy; 8. Speaking Bright; 9. Making the self; 10. Bright make the social; 11. Creating the democratic imaginary; Part III. Democratic Romances: Narrative as Collective Identity in Nineteenth-Century England: 12. Narrative and history; 13. The romance of improvement; 14. The aesthetic framing of the social; 15. The constitution as an English Eden; 16. The story of the cruel Turk; 17. Some democratic leading men, or Mrls6