Becoming Bourgeois

Becoming Bourgeois
Author :
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages : 309
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780813171456
ISBN-13 : 0813171458
Rating : 4/5 (458 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Becoming Bourgeois by : Frank Byrne

Download or read book Becoming Bourgeois written by Frank Byrne and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2006-10-20 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Becoming Bourgeois is the first study to focus on what historians have come to call the “middling sort,” the group falling between the mass of yeoman farmers and the planter class that dominated the political economy of the antebellum South. Historian Frank J. Byrne investigates the experiences of urban merchants, village storekeepers, small-scale manufacturers, and their families, as well as the contributions made by this merchant class to the South’s economy, culture, and politics in the decades before, and the years of, the Civil War. These merchant families embraced the South but were not of the South. At a time when Southerners rarely traveled far from their homes, merchants annually ventured forth on buying junkets to northern cities. Whereas the majority of Southerners enjoyed only limited formal instruction, merchant families often achieved a level of education rivaled only by the upper class—planters. The southern merchant community also promoted the kind of aggressive business practices that New South proponents would claim as their own in the Reconstruction era and beyond. Along with discussion of these modern approaches to liberal capitalism, Byrne also reveals the peculiar strains of conservative thought that permeated the culture of southern merchants. While maintaining close commercial ties to the North, southern merchants embraced the religious and racial mores of the South. Though they did not rely directly upon slavery for their success, antebellum merchants functioned well within the slave-labor system. When the Civil War erupted, southern merchants simultaneously joined Confederate ranks and prepared to capitalize on the war’s business opportunities, regardless of the outcome of the conflict. Throughout Becoming Bourgeois, Byrne highlights the tension between these competing elements of southern merchant culture. By exploring the values and pursuits of this emerging class, Byrne not only offers new insight into southern history but also deepens our understanding of the mutable ties between regional identity and the marketplace in nineteenth-century America.


Becoming Bourgeois Related Books

Becoming Bourgeois
Language: en
Pages: 309
Authors: Frank Byrne
Categories: Business & Economics
Type: BOOK - Published: 2006-10-20 - Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Becoming Bourgeois is the first study to focus on what historians have come to call the “middling sort,” the group falling between the mass of yeoman farmer
Becoming Bourgeois
Language: en
Pages: 358
Authors: Christopher H. Johnson
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2015-11-16 - Publisher: Cornell University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Becoming Bourgeois traces the fortunes of three French families in the municipality of Vannes, in Brittany—Galles, Jollivet, and Le Ridant—who rose to promi
Leave Me Alone and I'll Make You Rich
Language: en
Pages: 246
Authors: Deirdre Nansen McCloskey
Categories: Business & Economics
Type: BOOK - Published: 2020-10-30 - Publisher: University of Chicago Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A “thought-provoking” one-volume distillation of the author’s powerful trilogy in praise of the middle class’s role in creating a better, and richer, wo
The Bourgeois Interior
Language: en
Pages: 220
Authors: j Brown
Categories: Literary Criticism
Type: BOOK - Published: 2012-10-05 - Publisher: University of Virginia Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

From Robinson Crusoe’s cave to Henry Selwyn’s hermitage, the domestic interior tells a story about "things" and their relation to character and identity. Be
Bourgeois Dignity
Language: en
Pages: 588
Authors: Deirdre N. McCloskey
Categories: Business & Economics
Type: BOOK - Published: 2011-11-15 - Publisher: University of Chicago Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Arguing that the biggest economic story of our times is how China & India have embraced neoliberalism, Deirdre McCloskey suggests that economic change depends l