MAKING THE MIDDLE CLASS: ONE LETTER AT A TIME

According to Dierks, the middle-class that emerged in the eighteenth century assumed political and economic power, but did so without the overt struggles often inherent in class formation. Dierks also says little about colonists in the British West Indies, even though they offer an intriguing contrast to those living in the thirteen American colonies. [...] what about the social and cultural differences between wealthy and poor Britons, rural and urban, Northern and Southern colonists, Scots, Irish, English, or European immigrants?