Conflict and Compromise: Class Formation in English Society 1830-1914

First published in 1982, this study explores the dynamics of class formation during the vital decades between 1830 and 1914, when a rising urban industrial order was developing in complex interdependence with a declining rural agrarian order.

The book follows the divergent paths of two cities - Birmingham and Sheffield – in their social development. These paths reflect the complex process of conflict and compromise as the ‘old’ order was gradually replaced by the ‘new’. It studies in detail...