Distributing Status
The Evolution of State Honours in Western Europe
How awards, decorations, and medals bestow social standing.
Description
Honorific rewards are all about status and illustrate status processes in a way that few other social phenomena do. Why do we have so many honorific awards and prizes? Although they are a major feature of modern societies, they have received little scholarly attention. Samuel Clark argues that answering this question requires a separate historical analysis of different awards and prizes. He presents a comprehensive explanation of the origins and evolution of state honours in the British Isles, France, and the Low Countries. Examining cultural, social, and political changes that led to the massive growth in state honours and shaped their characteristics, Distributing Status also demonstrates their functions as instruments of cultural power, collective power, disciplinary power, and status power. Clark supports his conclusions with a cross-cultural statistical analysis of twenty societies. Lucid and logical, Distributing Status explicates an important historical change in Western Europe while at the same time contributing to several bodies of sociological literature, including evolutionary theory, theories of collective action, writings on discipline in modern societies, and studies of status processes.
Reviews
"Clark argues astutely how a chronology of events influenced and contributed to outcomes to varying degrees at different times and in different countries." D’Arcy Jonathan Dacre Boulton, University of Notre Dame
"Clark takes pains to integrate historical variables into a coherent, evolutionary account of the modernization of state honors systems. Indeed, he employs a largely adaptive model of historical change whereby the ancient and medieval traditions of knightly orders are modified by political and social elites to respond to the demographic, institutional, and competitive pressures of modernization and interstate rivalries." Journal of Modern History
"Clark's well-chosen examples of the complex and often-contradictory attitudes of officials and society toward state honours illustrate a sophisticated and nuanced study that takes full account of the particularities of the West European experience while locating them within the global history of honours distribution, extending from ancient times to the present." Canadian Journal of History
"Samuel Clark has already made a seminal contribution to scholarship with his book State and Status: The Rise of the State and Aristocratic Power in Europe. His new book cements his position as one of the finest scholars working in comparative and historical sociology. This book represents a major contribution to our understanding of the development of modern Europe and should be of wide interest to sociologists, political scientists, cultural and political historians, and those with an interest in European studies. For those working in these fields, it is a must-read book." Kenneth Dyson, Cardiff University
"This book is full of insights about status as a fundamental form of social power in modern western society." Cecilia Ridgeway, Stanford University
"In this broad-ranging and innovative study, enriched by methodologies drawn from the social sciences, Samuel Clark shows how honorific awards have evolved across the centuries." Alan Forrest, University of York
"A major contribution to our understanding of the development of modern Europe and should be of wide interest to sociologists, political scientists, cultural and political historians, and those with an interest in European studies. For those working in these fields, it is a must-read book." French History
"Distributing Status combines theoretical sophistication with an amazing grasp of historical detail. It is a remarkable accomplishment rooted in a lifetime of thoughtful scholarship." Murray Milner, University of Virginia
"This impressive book makes a persuasive case for the importance of state honors in dealing with several modern issues. The results of this meticulous study will interest not only historians but also political scientists and sociologists, from whose disciplines the author draws widely." Journal of Interdisciplinary History
"Clark is a sociologist and approaches the study of honours from that discipline. Although the work is framed and governed by that field, it is equally accessible - and useful - to the historian and the statistician. I would also commend it to any government or organization intent on establishing or reforming its own honours system." Peter J. Galloway, Brunel University