Distributing status : the evolution of state honours in Western Europe / Samuel Clark.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Clark, Samuel, 1945- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Awards--Social aspects--Europe, Western--History.

Awards.

Decorations of honor--Social aspects--Europe, Western--History.

Decorations of honor.

Medals--Social aspects--Europe, Western--History.

Medals.

Social status--Europe, Western--History.

Social status.

Social classes--Europe, Western--History.

Social classes.

Awards--Europe, Western--History.

Decorations of honor--Europe, Western--History.

Medals--Europe, Western--History.

History.

Social aspects.

Western Europe.

Physical Description:

xii, 508 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : color illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Montreal : Mcgill-Queens Univ Press, 2016.

Summary:

Honorific rewards are all about status and illustrate status processes in a way that few other social phenomena do. Although these honours are a major feature of modern societies, they have received little scholarly attention. Why do we have so many honorific awards and prizes? Samuel Clark argues that answering this question requires a separate historical analysis of different awards and prizes. He presents a comprehensive explanation of the origins and evolution of state honours in the British Isles, France, and the Low Countries. Examining cultural, social, and political changes that led to the massive growth in state honours and shaped their characteristics, Distributing Status also demonstrates their functions as instruments of cultural power, collective power, disciplinary power, and status power. Clark supports his conclusions with a cross-cultural statistical analysis of twenty societies. Lucid and logical, Distributing Status explicates an important historical change in Western Europe while at the same time contributing to several bodies of sociological literature, including evolutionary theory, theories of collective action, writings on discipline in modern societies, and studies of status processes. Book jacket.

Contents:

Part one: Bourgeoisie, aristocracy, and cultural power. Rise of the bourgeoisie

Persistence of the old order

Cultural power

Part two: State, war, and collective power. Theoretical considerations

Conditions for collective action in medieval Europe

Conditions for collective action in early modern and modern Europe

Collective-action problems and the honours of states

Part three: Social structures and disciplinary power. The middle ages

Descipline in early modern and modern Europe

Disciplinary functions of state honours

Part four: Status structures and status power. Honours and existing status structures

Status struggles

Status consequences of state honours

State honours in comparative perspecitve: a global analysis

Conclusion: toward an explanation of modern state hnoours

Epilogue: the endless spiral of honours.

Notes:

Includes index.

Bibliography: pages [451]-481.

ISBN:

0773546847

9780773546844

OCLC:

932386681