New Perspectives on Class Formation: Culture, Reproduction, and Agency

Abstract

The essays by Hans Marks and Don Kalb represent important contributions to a growing literature on class formation. Much of the current attention to class formation flows from the contemporary concern with larger processes of identity formation (Hanagan 1989; McNall 1988; Tilly 1992). Scholars such as Ira Katznelson and Adam Przeworski have emphasized the contingent character of class identity while, at the same time, reminding us of the need to understand why millions of people in the late nineteenth century chose to band together and fight under banners labeled proletarian (Katznelson 1986; Przeworski 1977).