Paul Johnson

They Know Their Place

The Middle Class: A History

By

Fifty years ago, General Franco used to say to English visitors: ‘What I want to introduce into Spain is what you already have, a large middle class. Here we have too little between the landowners on the one side, and the peasants and workers on the other. Just you wait! We will create a Spanish version of your middle class!’ The half-century has passed. The Spanish middle class has come into being, though whether it has benefited Spain in all the ways Franco expected is doubtful. But what, in the meantime, has happened to the English middle class he so much admired?

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • Britain’s only travelling lit fest, the Garden Museum Literary Festival is heading to Houghton Hall, Norfolk, for a… ,
    • 'The 19th-century German sage is not my idea of a pleasant travel companion' goes hiking with Friedr… ,
    • If you want ideas about what to read next, sign up to our free email newsletter, and get book reviews, archive mate… ,
    • 'The heroic male nude could not, I think, be used today to signify civic pride and glory', as Michelangelo’s 'David… ,
    • 'Munch’s later works show us a man liberated from the torments that gave rise to some of the best-known early works… ,
    • 'We read from left to right and from start to finish. Or do we?' Stuart Hannabus considers the merits of reading i… ,
    • Domestic scandal, sexual abuse and serial killers are on the menu in April's crime round-up. revie… ,
    Follow Us