Theories Of The New Class: Intellectuals And Power

)This engaged and engaging book by New Class analysts Lawrence Peter King and Ivan Szelenyi can be read in at least two ways. It is a comprehensive detailed survey of new class theories, Eastern European and Western, since Bakunin coined the phase in the 1870s. In this sense it is a unique combination of history of ideas, placing theories of the new class in historical context, and a sociology of knowledge, explaining why certain theories emerged from various social and political conditions. The book also makes some subtle yet intriguing prescriptive claims. King and Szelenyi pursue several interesting ideas of their own — stated “tongue-and-cheek” they claim — as to who the next contender for New Class power will be.The main story is about three waves of New Class theorizing. The first wave, composed largely of anarchist theorists, began in 1870 with Mikhail Bakunin’s book