Contents

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents vii
3. Preface ix
4. 1. Introduction: Of Ruling Classes and Underclasses: Th e Laws of Social Mobility 1
5. PART I. Social Mobility by Time and Place
6. 2. Sweden: Mobility Achieved? 19
7. 3. The United States: Land of Opportunity 45
8. 4. Medieval England: Mobility in the Feudal Age 70
9. 5. Modern England: Th e Deep Roots of the Present 88
10. 6. A Law of Social Mobility 107
11. 7. Nature versus Nurture 126
12. PART II. Testing the Laws of Mobility
13. 8. India: Caste, Endogamy, and Mobility 143
14. 9. China and Taiwan: Mobility aft er Mao 167
15. 10. Japan and Korea: Social Homogeneity and Mobility 182
16. 11. Chile: Mobility among the Oligarchs 199
17. 12. The Law of Social Mobility and Family Dynamics 212
18. 13. Protestants, Jews, Gypsies, Muslims, and Copts: Exceptions to the Law of Mobility? 228
19. 14. Mobility Anomalies 253
20. PART III. The Good Society
21. 15. Is Mobility Too Low? Mobility versus Inequality 261
22. 16. Escaping Downward Social Mobility 279
23. Appendix 1: measuring social mobility 287
24. Appendix 2: deriving mobility rates from surname frequencies 296
25. Appendix 3: discovering the status of your surname lineage 301
26. Data sources for figures and tables 319
27. References 333
28. Index 349
29. Backmatter 365