In recent years the death of social class has been regularly reported - such pronouncements have been as exaggerated as they were untimely. Social class is as important to the understanding of late twentieth-century industrial societies as it was to their early twentieth-century counterparts. This book aims to explain why class has persisted as such a potent social force. In Repositioning Class Gordon Marshall uses the comparative study of British experiences in relation to those of the United States, Scandinavia and the former communist countries of Eastern Europe. Also examined are cases where Britain provides the exclusive focus for discussion either about class itself, or about how sociologists might most usefully pursue class analysis in the future. Specific issues include: the question of meritocracy, the relationship between class and gender, arguments about proletarianization, collective identities and the nature of the so-called underclass in advanced societies.