Class: A Guide Through the American Status System

In Class Paul Fussell explodes the sacred American myth of social equality with eagle-eyed irreverence and iconoclastic wit. This bestselling, superbly researched, exquisitely observed guide to the signs, symbols, and customs of the American class system is always outrageously on the mark as Fussell shows us how our status is revealed by everything we do, say, and own. He describes the houses, objects, artifacts, speech, clothing styles, and intellectual proclivities of American classes from the top to the bottom and everybody -- you'll surely recognize yourself -- in between. Class is guaranteed to amuse and infuriate, whether your class is so high it's out of sight (literally) or you are, alas, a sinking victim of prole drift.

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All Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Get it, 2008-11-26
One of the most important non-fiction books I've read in the last 20 years. Extremely shrewd, perceptive and certainly funny


0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Funniest Book I've Ever Read, 2008-11-05
Fussell really knows how to use wit and satire to go after the various socioeconomic groups in America. My Mom suggested I give it a look, so when I was right out of college and substitute teaching, I read the book while my students were busy doing their own work. Needless to say my random bursts of laughter confused them...I laughed over and over and over again.

Despite the book being written over twenty years ago, the same descriptions of "proles" and other groups are just as true now as they were back then. If you want a good laugh that makes you examine American society, perhaps even yourself, I'd highly suggest reading Class. You won't regret it.


0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Yes, yes, yes, yesssssssssssss!, 2008-10-27
Almost as good as sex. Whenever I feel blue, I pull this book into bed with me and laugh until I fall asleep. My daughter (born during the year of the first printing of CLASS...twenty-some years ago) has found many clues to life in this book. I... have a secret... I admit to wearing ankle-length purple polyester dresses with a small amount of Lycra, but no sheen. This style (used in the loosest sense of the word) goes with my x characteristics and looks better on me than that preppy crap as I wander through the zigging and zagging streets of Rome, IT or Redmond, WA. (I'm artsy and I'm a class floater.) Every school-child should be forced to read this book before given a high-school diploma or GED equivalent. Also, I now know why I stopped watching tv in 1965... I'm from the upper classes and I was kidnapped at birth. Damn fine use of the English language by the author, Fussell, as well.


0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

Guaranteed to ruffle feathers, 2008-10-02
I have owned two copies of this hilarious book for many years and have loaned them out to innumerable folks. Without fail when the person returns it to me they say yeah, it was funny, and mostly accurate, but I don't necessarily agree with the part about such-and-such. And then also without fail this person then admits after a little prodding that they actually DO the such-and-such that they believe should have been omitted from the book.



0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

Gee-wiz ! America is not a classless society ? , 2008-08-27
I read Paul Fussell's Class in 1983, shortly after its publication. Class
is easy to read and is funny, but in a very biting sort of way. Now, 25
years later, with a political campaign being waged, we see much the same thing for those who are aware of class, or are just too broke to be satisfied with their place in American society.
Note how the politicians like to condemn "elitism" and publically identify themselves with the middle-class and even working-class to appeal to voters.
Note how our first black major party candidate for president is both praised for his achievements and also condemned as being an elitist snob - both Obamas are.
In the primaries, Hillary Clinton (a very Upper-middleclass person)
presented herself as a struggling working-class woman in the blue-collar
areas of Pennsylvania. People tend to want to be upwardly mobile, as they conceive it, on the one hand, and are also envious and hateful toward those they see above and beyond them. And we will condtinue to see
this in the election this fall and Not for the first time of course.
Paul Fussell should be a public commentator on this issue, but I can see
why those-who-rule (out of sight and mind) would not like that.
The latest gulf war has demonstrated class devisions in ways that cannot
be hidden. There is a warrior-class (except some officers) who enlist
in the military for benefits and some sort of security, and then there
are "the rest of us" who need not worry about military service due to our
more or less secure financial situations.
The "proles" go to Iraq, but those who send them there (the ruling class) with few exceptions do not.
Note how class-oriented patriotism is - Pro Americanism (pro-gun, anti-
abortion, pro-religion, pro-military) tends to be of a very low-taste, lower-middle-class, "prolish" appeal. People who tend to be patriotic and
are proud of being American (and perhaps being white as well) are more
likey to have those attitudes because their overall socio-economic situation is very insecure. There is also nothing new in this, ofcourse,
but our election campaigns tend to highlight it. Here we go again....

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