About the Author:
Owen Jones is a writer, commentator and activist. He writes frequently for the Guardian, Independent and New Statesman, and has worked in Parliament as a trade union lobbyist and parliamentary researcher, helping Labour plan backbench rebellions on issues ranging from civil liberties to workers’ rights. He lives in London.
Review:
“A passionate and well-documented denunciation of the upper-class contempt for the proles that has recently become so visible in the British class system.”
—Eric Hobsbawm, Guardian (“Books of the Year”)
“Timely ... Jones seeks to explain how, thanks to politics, the working class has shifted from being regarded as ‘the salt of the earth’ to ‘the scum of the earth.’”
—Carol Midgley, Times (“Book of the Week”)
“Persuasively argued, and packed full of good reporting and useful information ... Jones makes an important contribution to a revivified debate about class.”
– Lynsey Hanley, author of Estates
“A work of passion, sympathy and moral grace.”
—Dwight Garner, New York Times
“A lively, well-reasoned and informative counterblast to the notion that Britain is now more or less a classless society.”
—Sean O’Hagan, Observer
“Eloquent and impassioned.”
– Evening Standard
“A bold attempt to rewind political orthodoxies; to reintroduce class as a political variable ... it moves in and out of postwar British history with great agility, weaving together complex questions of class, culture and identity with a lightness of touch. Jones torches the political class to great effect.”
—Jon Cruddas, Independent (“Book of the Week”)
“Superb and angry.”
—Polly Toynbee, Guardian
“Seen in the light of the riots and the worldwide Occupy protests, his lucid analysis of a divided society appears uncannily prescient.”
—Matthew Higgs, Artforum
“As with all the best polemics, a luminous anger backlights his prose.”
– Economist
“A trenchant exposure of our new class hatred and what lies behind it.”
—John Carey, author of The Intellectuals and the Masses
“The stereotyping and hatred of the working class in Britain, documented so clearly by Owen Jones in this important book, should cause all to flinch. Reflecting our high levels of inequality, the stigmatization of the working class is a serious barrier to social justice and progressive change.”
—Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson, authors of The Spirit Level
“Jones's analysis of the condition of the working class is very astute ... A book like this is very much needed for the American scene, where the illusion is similarly perpetuated by the Democrats that the middle-class is all that matters, that everyone can aspire to join the middle-class or is already part of it.”
—Anis Shivani, Huffington Post
“Everybody knows what a chav is, it seems, but no one is a chav. But then it's a word unlike any other in current usage ... A new book, Chavs: The Demonisation of the Working Class, by first-time author Owen Jones ... has thrown the word into the spotlight all over again.”
—Carole Cadwalladr, Observer
“A blinding read.”
—Suzanne Moore, Guardian
“[A] thought-provoking examination of a relatively new yet widespread derogatory characterization of the working class in Britain ... edifying and disquieting in equal measure.”
– Publishers Weekly
“A fiery reminder of how the system has failed the poor.”
—Peter Hoskin, Daily Beast
“Impassioned and thought-provoking ... I genuinely hope his voice is heard.”
—Claire Black, Scotland on Sunday
“Passionate, angry and articulate, Chavs rail[s] against the cynical slandering, by politicians and the media, of working people.”
– Scotsman
“What makes Chavs a work of art is precisely [its] power of demonstrating the deceptive nature of the premise of an all-encompassing neo–middle class. Far from being classless, British society is defined by an effort to undermine and demonize the underprivileged.”
– Los Angeles Review of Books
“A highly readable and very important book.”
—David Skelton, Total Politics
“A long overdue look at the state of the class war in Britain today.”
—Pat Stack, Socialist Review
“Reminds us of the potential political and economic power that exists largely untapped in British society.”
—Richard Seymour, author of Against Austerity
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