Why and how did the British people come to see themselves as living in a society centred around a middle class? The answer provided by Professor Wahrman challenges most prevalent historical narratives: the key to understanding changes in conceptualisations of society, the author argues, lies not in underlying transformations of social structure - in this case industrialisation, which supposedly created and empowered the middle class - but rather in changing political configurations. Firmly grounded in a close reading of an extensive array of sources, and supported by comparative perspectives on France and America, the book offers a nuanced model for the interplay between social reality, politics, and the languages of class.

Economic history is the most quantitative branch of history, reflecting the interests and profiting from the techniques and concepts of economics. This essay, first published in 1977, provides an extensive contribution to quantitative historiography by delivering a critical guide to the sources of the numerical data of the period 1700 to 1850. This title will be of interest to students of history, finance and economics.

The volumes in this set, originally published between 1967 and 1997, draw together research by leading academics in the area of the industrial revolution and provides an examination of related key issues. The volumes examine urban workers and the working class in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-centuries, economic growth during the industrial revolution, and the causes of the industrial revolution, with a primary focus on England. This set will be of particular interest to students of history, business and economics.