Rating: 
Summary: Sharp, insightful and funny
Review: This is a very witty, amusing and irreverent look at the supposedly nonexistant American class system. It's clear that Paul Fussell does not have a very high regard for any class, with the exception of the one he calls Class X --those people who don't fit stereotypes. Fussell identifies nine major classes, from top out-of-sight all the way down to bottom out-of sight, while focusing mainly on those in between. No detail escapes Fussell's critical eye. Proles, for example, tend to be overweight, wear baseball caps (often backwards) and ornament their cars with things like dice hanging from the front mirror; the middle class speak in pretentious euphemisms ("cocktails" instead of drinks, "position" for job), are preoccupied with lawns and like to join clubs. The only thing that detracts from this book, first published in 1983, is that some of the material is dated. For example, the prole habit of dressing up for travel is almost obsolete in today's almost universally casual world. In fact, many of the bohemian traits he ascribes to Class X (such as wearing clothes from LL Bean) have, over the last two decades, been appropriated by other, more conventional classes. It is interesting to note that the popular term Generation X (coined by Douglas Coupland in the novel by the same name) was inspired by Fussell's book, although the meaning was changed. There are still many valid insights here, and the book is a genuine pleasure to read. As a follow-up, readers may enjoy another of Fussell's books, even more elitist and misanthropic than Class, called Bad.
Rating:
Summary: Good Book
Review: I have an avid interest in sociology and maybe that's why I enjoyed this book so much. Fussell attempts to take you through the American class system, explaining not only what determines your class but what traits give it away, and for the most part I think he's accurate. The only problem I have is that when attempting to define social classes he states that it's not simply economics that determine your social class but that there are many other factors. It is here that I begin to wonder about him, especially in relation to the proles. Although your speech, manner of dressing, e.t.c. give away your social class, many times these are determined by your economic status. But, all in all, I think Fussell did a pretty decent job.
Rating: 
Summary: Funny, insightful and frightfully true!
Review: After reading this book I can figure out just about anyone's class background or if they are a member of category X (immune to the class system), which is quite entertaining. If this book doesn't make you more self-aware, nothing will. Simply as a test, upon meeting several new upper-middle and upper class people, I replied "Very nice to meet you", after being introduced, and not one person responded overly favorably. However, when I replied "How do you do?" I was asked for a contact number by every single one. Just a small thing, but one out of hundreds of things that Mr. Fussell points out will subtly reveal our social background. Mr. Fussell seems to think that we cannot move out of the class bracket in which we were raised, but I believe that if desired passionately enough, one's social station can be improved, or at least one can utilize useful information in appropriate situations to his or her social advantage. This book gives you ample information to do this. With my mixed upper prole and middle class background, I found his observations extremely accurate and hysterically funny. I recently did a bit of interior renovating but just could not bear the thought of parting with my porcelain spoon collection. Instead of considering myself a lost cause, I choose to reaffirm my belief that generally like attracts like, but that's no reason to always limit your social life. If you are not happy merely socializing with people from your social background I see no reason why you can't "fool" (at least temporarily) those in a class above your own if you are determined to do so. What has worked best for me, though, is just to be myself, admit my weaknesses, be open to suggestion and apply whatever advice I choose. The only possible aspiration I had after reading this book, was to be an X person. What now gives me a chuckle, is to observe the people who live in the upper middle class communities. Many of them come from middle and prole classes, but think that they are exuding "blue blood" characteristics when they dress up to go shopping at the mall in their designer clothes, giving snotty looks to those who don't, and are obsessively concerned with "doing the right thing", while the true upper middles don't usually step foot in a mall; on the rare occasion that they do they will often be the ones donning well-worn jeans and a tee shirt. Mr. Fussell's observations on education may be quite accurate, but he places too much importance on it. Contrary to his opinions, my husband and I have known and worked with several multi-millionaires who are well-liked and accepted in many of the upper social circles, yet some did not even attend college. If one is going to attempt the whole intellectual/educational status game, then, as he points out, the right prep-school is just as important as the (ivy league) university one attends. However, some people are going to be morons regardless of whether they attend the right university and/or come from an upper class background, thus will never reach the pinacle of social status. Chapter VIII was interesting, with its mention of "social sinking", and how many lesbians aspire to it by taking blue collar jobs, while on the opposite note, male homosexuals aspire to the upscale "glamourous" life and attempt to affect grand and elegant mannerisms.
Rating:
Summary: still the best book to correct the low class characteristics
Review: Ignore the dry, academic opening chapter and the dated references to TV shows like Paper Chase -- The Nanny, Frasier, Gilmore Girls, and Martha Stewart Living weren't around when this book was written. While some of the attributes of the different lower classes may be personally disappointing, the book can be useful in identifying and correcting behaviors that are holding us back on the job. There is a fun quiz in the back where you assess the possessions in your home and you're given points or have points taken away for each item. Taking notes while reading the book also helps to identify the hundreds of ways we clue the rest of the world into our lower class origins despite our bachelors and masters degrees.
Rating:
Summary: an american class system?
Review: Though a bit dated, this is a wonderful book (i have the 1989 paperback edition, so i don't know if he has updated the book). I love the tongue-in-cheek humor that Fussell uses throughout the book. Especially dealing with the middle class. You'll find yourself laughing out loud. And the book is surprisingly relevant. You'd think that a 20 year old book about class in America wouldn't be relevant, but there is a lot to be taken from this book. Like I said, it is a bit dated, but any intelligent person (which most of you reading this book are) can make the changes. And after reading most of the book, and you can't seem to figure out which class you belong to, Fussell introduces, in the final chapter, the "X" people. Those that don't belong to any class, or create a category of their own. Yeah, not all "X" people fit all the criteria of Fussell's, but then part of being an "X" person is that individuality, and not necessarily filling every 'criteria.' This is a great book, if not for Fussell's social statement on America, at least for the humor he uses.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining book on the class system
Review: I first read Paul Fussell's Class in the early 90s and reread it recently. I find it to be an entertaining examination of the class system in America. Fussell works from the premise that the egalitarian ideal of a classless society is a myth. Further, class is not purely conveyed by money and power because status is a function of your upbringing and environment. You can determine status in everyday life from observing a person's appearance, behavior, likes/dislikes, etc. It is here where Fussell's razor sharp wit and eye for detail either offends readers (perhaps cutting too close too home), or has them rolling on the floor laughing like myself. My main caveat is that you should not treat this book as a sociological treatise on the class system in America. While it is well written, organized, and offers Fussell's curmudgeonly witticism, it fails to address any major sociological issue or question. Fussell is (was?) a Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania, and thus I am emphasizing the entertainment value of book in my review. If you would like to examine the sociological implications of class more thoroughly (especially the upper classes), I would suggest that you read the works of Fussell's colleague Prof. E. Digby Baltzell. Overall, I still rate the book 5 stars because it is rare to see a book this well-written.
Rating:
Summary: Accurate, Funny, Acerbic
Review: Fussell pokes fun, with deadly aim, at America's real class system. What you say, wear, eat, and drink are dead giveaways. Recommend with caution: You will no doubt find yourself here, although you may not like what Fussell says about your "station" in life.
Rating:
Summary: X-Man Lays Bare Seldom Seen Social Strata!
Review: Paul Fussell's Class is an enlightening, and mercilessly funny, if somewhat dated unmasking of the realities of class in America. Fussell is not a social scientist, but a professor of English with a sharp eye and a pen to match. He spares us the doubtful and boring apparatus of the social sciences, offering instead his own unfettered observations supported by a wide reading. He delineates nine classes: top out-of-sight, upper, upper middle, middle, high proletarian, mid-prole, low-prole, destitute, bottom out-of-sight, and a special category he calls "X people". Fussell then fleshes out this taxonomy in chapters dealing with appearance, housing, buying habits, recreation, drinking, reading, education, and language. Fussell is so acute and dead-on (with some lapses) that I cannot imagine anyone with the slightest degree of self-knowledge reading this book and not experiencing the dawn of recognition, sometimes painfully. He is especially hard on the middle and prole classes. Here I fault him, not for inaccuracy but for a lack of sympathy that would have taken him to a deeper level of understanding and somewhat softened the blows. Fussell, it seems certain, includes himself in the X category, a group of people outside the normal class system. This explains the coldness with which he regards those still caught on the wheel. That being said, the degree of enlightenment Fussell offers is worth the price of his supercilious gaze. While he is not the final word, reading him will greatly help anyone to understand better the reality of class in America. And he is after all, correct: the middle class is the bastion of "psychic insecurity" and envy, and the prole class are fat, gullible and tastelessly dressed. For lack of vision the people perish.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful
Review: You may not like what you read, but the book will clearly tell you your class in this class-less society of ours. Fussell is right on target.
Rating:
Summary: Essential reading for social climbers
Review: An excellent summary of how the social strata in the U.S. arrange themselves by taste rather than necessarily by income.
It does show its age and could use at least a new chapter outlining the effects of social trends of the last twenty years on our class system such as the pervasiveness of personal computers and the internet, immigration, "political correctness", downsizing, etc. Fussell's description at the end of Class X sounds like an early incarnation of the Bobo class
described in David Brooks' recent book, which shows that no one ultimately escapes classification, so use the information presented in this book to at least pretend to be a class higher than you actually are.
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