Using an innovative framework, this reader examines the most important and influential writings on modern class relations. * Uses an interdisciplinary approach that combines scholarship from political economy, social history, and cultural studies * Brings together more than 50 selections rich in theory and empirical detail that span the working, middle, and capitalist classes * Analyzes class within the larger context of labor, particularly as it relates to conflicts over and about work * Provides insight into the current crisis in the global capitalist system, including the Occupy Wall Street Movement, the explosion of Arab Spring, and the emergence of class conflict in China