The Breaking of the English Working Class

What has become of the English Working Class in the 21st Century?

Class is more central to understanding what is happening in the UK than it has been for decades. But what does it mean to be working class today? And how should we define it? For some, it is a cultural definition, untethered from its traditional links to labourism. For others, the divisions are found between generations based around the opportunities of home ownership.

Jonas Marvin argues that such simple definitions are not enough. Visiting two communities – Tottenham in north London, and Stoke in the Midlands, he shows that while there is a common experience of work, the differences in housing and everyday life are palpable, resulting in a profound bifurcation in proletarian consciousness. Ultimately, the book charts the demolition of the conscious, political subject whose emergence E.P. Thompson traced more than half a century ago: the English working class.