<p>Since the turn of the millennium, the growth of the “new global middle class” in the world’s rapidly emerging economies has received much interest, even excitement. But what is new middle class really like in countries such as India and Brazil? Is it a solid upwardly mobile social group – or rather a fragile class prone to poverty again once the next economic crisis comes? Does the new middle class support democracy – or does it rather tend towards aggressive nationalism? And if so much of the world is going to pursue typical middle class lifestyles and patterns of consumption, wouldn’t that have massive environmental impacts – or are there more sustainable options?</p> <p>With perspectives from India and Brazil, this volume provides new insights into what is likely the most significant social development of our times: the rise of a global middle class, full of aspirations, in a world where safe limits of sustainability are already being transgressed.</p>

<p>The middle class has been the defining demographic in examining the&nbsp;development of democracy in Europe, but it is unclear how this corresponds&nbsp;to democratic in developing countries, especially those with large&nbsp;populations at—or just above or below—the poverty line. What is undeniable&nbsp;is that as these countries develop what passes as middle class in&nbsp;their context will shape the politics of the future. The questions asked&nbsp;in this book—often with no easy answer—allow us to try and understand&nbsp;where the new populations are headed in the key developing, democratic&nbsp;polities of India and Brazil, and whether there is a real chance of&nbsp;these “middle classes” buying into sustainable, environmentally growth&nbsp;patterns. This is the beginning of a very important conversation, one&nbsp;which will go a long way to ensuring whether we continue to live in a habitable planet, or end up in much more inhospitable conditions.<br /> <strong>—Omair Ahmad,</strong> <em>Managing Editor, South Asia (www.thethirdpole.net)</em></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>An important new book that critically examines a phenomenon widely&nbsp;hailed as positive—the rise of the new middle class or NMC—and asks&nbsp;necessary, and sometimes difficult, questions about how this phenomenon&nbsp;has impacted ecological sustainability, democratic participation and&nbsp;social and gender justice in our world. Bringing together insights from&nbsp;India and Brazil—two very different and yet in many ways comparable&nbsp;countries—the authors open up many of the paradoxes that&nbsp; accompany&nbsp;what is generally seen as ‘development’ and ‘growth’.<br /> <strong>—Urvashi Butalia,</strong> <em>Publisher and Writer</em></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>The “new middle class”—Where is it located? Is it the centrepiece of&nbsp;an emerging global society or the outgrowth of an obsolete growth&nbsp;paradigm? An ideological construct, a political project or a marketing&nbsp;category? The present volume is a timely and perceptive invitation to&nbsp;compare discourses and practices of “middle classness” in the widely&nbsp;differing social contexts of Brazil and India. Such comparisons, unlikely&nbsp;as they may seem, help us to better understand the dialectics of democratization&nbsp;and reemerging authoritarianism that transform our world.<br /> <strong>—Ravi Ahuja,</strong> <em>Professor of Modern Indian History, Centre for Modern Indian&nbsp;Studies, University of Göttingen</em></p>