Originally published in 1975, this anthology of essays focusses on the historical dimension of class inequality which has long concerned both sociologists and social philosophers but has often been neglected in literature. Although Marx is the first name to come to mind when social inequality and class struggles are mentioned, most of the authors included here precede him. Each analyses and discusses the problems of class conflict as they understood them in the light of their own times. Taken together these writers treat stratification as essentially a pecking order where position is determined by relative power – a notion which subsumes rather than contradicts the economic interpretation of social inequality because wealth is a form of power. The relation between the views of these authors and the well-known theory of Marx is discussed in the Introduction.