Review: Class – A Graphic Guide, by Laura Harvey, Sarah Leaney and Danny Noble

Blurb

What do we mean by social class in the 21st century?

A new Graphic Guide from Icon Books. Sociologists Laura Harvey and Sarah Leaney and award-winning comics artist Danny Noble present an illustrated journey through the history, sociology and lived experience of class.

What can class tell us about gentrification, precarious work, the role of elites in society, or access to education? How have thinkers explored class in the past, and how does it affect us today? How does class inform activism and change?

Class: A Graphic Guide challenges simplistic and stigmatizing ideas about working-class people, discusses colonialist roots of class systems, and looks at how class intersects with race, sexuality, gender, disability and age. From the publishers of the bestselling Queer: A Graphic History, this is a vibrant, enjoyable introduction for students, community workers, activists and anyone who wants to understand how class functions in their own lives.

My Review

Thanks to Anne, at Random Things Tours for organising this blog tour, and to Icon Books and the writer and illustrator for my copy of this book.

I have other ‘Graphic Guides’ books from Icon Books – the Gender, Queer and Sexuality Graphic Guides. I loved them, they explain complex ideas in an understandable way and the illustrations are always amusing and instructive.

What do we mean by social class? How does class affect our life experiences? The book covers the theorists from Marx to the present day, analyses class in different spheres, like labour and culture, and discusses current debates in class.

This book is a really good introduction to the topic of class. It explains things clearly and gives the reader a lot to think about. The illustrations are really well done, reinforcing the text and adding to it. I highly recommend this book to everyone.