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Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite, Class, Politics, and the Decline of Deference in England (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2018)
Using self-narratives drawn from a wide range of sources - the raw materials of sociological studies, transcripts from oral history projects, Mass Observation, and autobiography - this book examines class identities and narratives of social change between 1968 and 2000, showing that by the end of the period, class was often seen as a historical identity, related to background and heritage, and that many felt strict class boundaries had blurred profoundly since 1945. Class snobberies 'went underground' as people from many backgrounds began to assert that what was important was authenticity, individuality, and ordinariness. Sutcliffe-Braithwaite argues that it is most useful to understand the cultural changes of these years through the lens of the decline of deference, which transformed people's attitudes towards both class and politics.