Cambridge Studies in Sociology – serie

Dancing was an essential part of life in Shakespeare's England. Town and country folk danced at weddings, Maydays and other festivities. Queen Elizabeth prided herself on her skill (and danced galliards in the morning to keep fit), and dancing was the soul of the extravagant masques which so delighted King James. Puritans might furiously denounce it but it was part of the ceremonial of the Inns of Court and a necessary accomplishment for a gentleman. At the same time, as Alan Brissenden shows in this book, the dance was an accepted symbol of harmony, and it was in this way that Shakespeare used it to express one of his major themes: the attempt to achieve order in a discordant world. He included it in at least a dozen of his plays and referred to it in thirty. A valuable source for his imagery, it also illuminates character and action and in some plays helps to forward the plot. In the history plays allusions to country dance, (especially the morris, and court dances like the lavolta)support ideas of conflict and the presentation of characters, especially Henry V. While there is no dancing itself in the histories there is plenty to be found in the comedies and two chapters of the book closely examine the relation of dance to dialogue, character and plot, particularly in "Love's Labour's Lost," "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "Much Ado About Nothing." In the tragedies dancing becomes a powerful ironic visual symbol, especially in Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth and Timon of Athens. After 1607 dance occurs in almost all of Shakespeare's plays, in such a way that it reflects and expresses the fusion of tragic and comic elements which characterize most of them. The closing chapters show how the dance relates to the cosmic ideas and imagery of these last plays from Perides to Henry VIII and suggest certain influences from the spectacular court masques of the time. In presenting his argument the author, who is a dance critic as well as an Elizabethan scholar, has drawn on manuscript sources, a wide range of contemporary writing, including dance manuals, and his own ideas in dance and theatre. This is a book for students and scholars, for editors, for theatre directors and for those interested in Renaissance dance. It is a book for everyone who delights in the riches of Shakespeare and the age in which he lived.

This book represents an advance in our knowledge of the labour market. For the first time it combines the analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data to produce an explanation of the main changes which have transformed the labour market during the recession. For the first time it demonstrates the segmented character of the youth labour market and the significance of the local labour markets. The result is a substantial contribution to labour market segmentation theory and to the analysis of social policy in this field.

This book represents an advance in our knowledge of the labour market. For the first time it combines the analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data to produce an explanation of the main changes which have transformed the labour market during the recession. For the first time it demonstrates the segmented character of the youth labour market and the significance of the local labour markets. The result is a substantial contribution to labour market segmentation theory and to the analysis of social policy in this field.

The affluent workers studied in this book, originally published in 1968, were employees of three major industrial concerns sited in Luton at the time. The three firms were selected as being amongst Luton's best-paying employers and also on account of their advanced personnel and labour relations policies. This choice enabled comparisons to be made between workers engaged in very different types of production system. On the basis of material from interviews and other data, the authors examine in detail workers' experience of their industrial jobs, their relations with workmates, and the nature of their attachment both to the organizations which employ them and to their trade unions. This study forms part of a larger project which was aimed at testing empirically the thesis, which was most prevalent 1968, that of the progressive assimilation of manual workers and their families into the pattern of middle class social life.

This 1968 volume, the second of The Affluent Worker monographs, reports on the voting and political attitudes of highly paid manual workers. As in the first book, the affluent workers studied are employed in Luton, a town which benefited faster and more consistently than almost any other in Britain from the economic progress of the 'fifties and early 'sixties. The sample was chosen as a 'critical' case to test some widely accepted views on the assimilation of the working classes into patterns of middle-class social life. On the basis of material from interviews, the authors give an account of the workers' political orientations, and this is followed by an analysis of voting in relationship to income house ownership, social origin and trade union membership. The main findings - that, despite their affluence, the majority of these workers remain staunch supporters of the Labour Party - runs counter to contemporary beliefs about working-class embourgeoisement.

This final book in The Affluent Worker series was originally published in 1969. It contains the findings and conclusions on the issues the research was specifically designed to investigate - the extent of working class embourgeoisment. This thesis is examined in the several contexts of work, sociability, social aspirations and imagery, and so on. At all these points it is called into question empirically and conceptually. In this volume which brings the project to an end, the authors also take up again the broad questions of class and politics out of which the investigation originally sprang.

Originally published in 1970, Men in Mid-Career deals with the problems of men aged 35-40 who have invested half a work-life in one type of career and may now be at a turning-point. It is at this stage that they come to realise the implications of the commitments they have made during the last 15-20 years. By this time, their personal reputations rest mainly with one employing organisation and it is difficult for them to leave unless they take a bold step involving great risks and far-reaching implications for their families, homes and types of life. The author provides a comprehensive review of the literature on the subject that was emanating from the UK and US, and goes on to report on a detailed study of representative samples of managers and technical specialists in two large UK firms. The book juxtaposes the viewpoints of senior management and the man whose career is simultaneously a building block in a task-centred system and the repository of his identity.

Originally published in 1973, this book tells the story of the complete move in 1965/1966 of Alfred Bird and Sons Limited from central Birmingham to Banbury, in which a large proportion of the existing labour force was successfully transferred. By focusing on the relocation decision made by individual employees, the author was able to submit to a critical test sociological theories in a wide variety of fields - urban and regional planning, family and community sociology and industrial sociology. The main body of the book presents the results of interview surveys conducted on the company's employees both before and after the move. The varied technologies of the company enabled Dr Mann to contribute to the debate concerning technological determinants of workers' attitudes and behaviour. This book will be of of interest to both laymen and specialists concerned with industrial and urban problems in society.

An analysis of change in the middle levels of the American class structure. Dr Mackenzie's study is designed to test the common assertion in the press and in recent American academic sociology that the line separating the working class from the middle class is becoming increasingly blurred, leading to the embourgeoisement of large numbers of skilled blue-collar workers. In the course of his research he conducted intensive interviews with skilled craftsmen, routine white-collar workers and managers. (The latter were seen as being a middle class 'control group'.) The survey was carried out in Providence, Rhode Island. The author's central conclusion is that class barriers are not breaking down in American society at the present time - that large numbers of blue collar workers are not becoming absorbed into the middle class. Rather, it is suggested, craftsmen are in a class by themselves, isolated both from the traditional working class and the established middle class.