Over the last century and a half, manners and formalities in the West have become less status-ridden, stiff and rigid. Debates around Norbert Elias’ theory of

This highly original book explains the sweeping changes to twentieth-century regimes of manners and self. Broad in scope and deep in analytic reach, it provides

Dining out used to be considered exceptional; however, the Food Standards Authority reported that in 2014, one meal in six was eaten away from home in Britain.

Keith Thomas's earlier studies in the ethnography of early modern England, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Man and the Natural World, and The Ends of Life, w

The book presents an authoritative assessment of Norbert Elias (1897–1990). It recognizes Elias as one of the major contributors to the development of sociolo