The Son Also Rises : Surnames and the History of Social Mobility / Gregory Clark.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Clark, Gregory, author.

Contributor:

Cummins, Neil.

Hao, Yu.

Diaz Vidal, Daniel.

Series:

Princeton economic history of the Western world.

The Princeton Economic History of the Western World ; 49

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Social mobility--History.

Social mobility.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (385 p.)

Place of Publication:

Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2014]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

How much of our fate is tied to the status of our parents and grandparents? How much does it influence our children? More than we wish to believe. While it has been argued that rigid class structures have eroded in favor of greater social equality, The Son Also Rises proves that movement on the social ladder has changed little over eight centuries. Using a novel technique-tracking family names over generations to measure social mobility across countries and periods-renowned economic historian Gregory Clark reveals that mobility rates are lower than conventionally estimated, do not vary across societies, and are resistant to social policies.Clark examines and compares surnames in such diverse cases as modern Sweden and Qing Dynasty China. He demonstrates how fate is determined by ancestry and that almost all societies have similarly low social mobility rates. Challenging popular assumptions about mobility and revealing the deeply entrenched force of inherited advantage, The Son Also Rises is sure to prompt intense debate for years to come.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface

1. Introduction: Of Ruling Classes and Underclasses: Th e Laws of Social Mobility

PART I. Social Mobility by Time and Place

2. Sweden: Mobility Achieved?

3. The United States: Land of Opportunity

4. Medieval England: Mobility in the Feudal Age

5. Modern England: Th e Deep Roots of the Present

6. A Law of Social Mobility

7. Nature versus Nurture

PART II. Testing the Laws of Mobility

8. India: Caste, Endogamy, and Mobility

9. China and Taiwan: Mobility aft er Mao

10. Japan and Korea: Social Homogeneity and Mobility

11. Chile: Mobility among the Oligarchs

12. The Law of Social Mobility and Family Dynamics

13. Protestants, Jews, Gypsies, Muslims, and Copts: Exceptions to the Law of Mobility?

14. Mobility Anomalies

PART III. The Good Society

15. Is Mobility Too Low? Mobility versus Inequality

16. Escaping Downward Social Mobility

Appendix 1: measuring social mobility

Appendix 2: deriving mobility rates from surname frequencies

Appendix 3: discovering the status of your surname lineage

Data sources for figures and tables

References

Index

Backmatter

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Pilot project,eBook available to selected US libraries only

Includes bibliographical references (pages 333-348) and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Mai 2019)

ISBN:

9780691168371

0691168377

9781400851096

1400851092

OCLC:

868282776