Part III: Reintroducing and Refining Social Structure in Social History

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There is widespread agreement that attention to social structure has declined in historical research over the past two decades, partly as a result of changes in the classic structures of industrial society and the decline of Marxism, partly as a result of the cultural turn. There is far less agreement as to whether this matters much. Social historians who take advantage of the cultural turn and its frequent amorphousness on class, risk appearing as outdated throwbacks, even by scholars who have also tired of the cultural emphasis.

Why, then, discuss some form of revival? Societies do organize inequality, and understanding their systems and the ways these systems change and …