Evaluates the notions of orders and class by conceptual analysis and also by examining their application to the societies of Eastern and Western Europe in the period 1500 onwards. The book aims to study the nobility, clergy, middle classes, peasantry, the proletariat and the poor.

This pioneering survey evaluates the notions of class and order throughout European history since 1500. After a general theoretical section on the concept of orders and class, the book provides discussions and case studies of the nobility, the clergy, the middle classes and the rural and urban proletariat. The studies are drawn from all over Europe, from early modern Castile to late Tsarist Russia. Contributors include Peter Burke, Stuart Woolf, A A Thompson and Joseph Bergin.