--- product_id: 28982523 title: "The Son Also Rises: Surnames and the History of Social Mobility (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World)" price: "131.91 DT" currency: TND in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.tn/products/28982523-the-son-also-rises-surnames-and-the-history-of-social store_origin: TN region: Tunisia --- # The Son Also Rises: Surnames and the History of Social Mobility (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World) **Price:** 131.91 DT **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** The Son Also Rises: Surnames and the History of Social Mobility (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World) - **How much does it cost?** 131.91 DT with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.tn](https://www.desertcart.tn/products/28982523-the-son-also-rises-surnames-and-the-history-of-social) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description A surprising look at how ancestry still determines social outcomes How much of our fate is tied to the status of our parents and grandparents? How much does it influence our children? More than we wish to believe. While it has been argued that rigid class structures have eroded in favor of greater social equality, The Son Also Rises proves that movement on the social ladder has changed little over eight centuries. Using a novel technique―tracking family names over generations to measure social mobility across countries and periods―renowned economic historian Gregory Clark reveals that mobility rates are lower than conventionally estimated, do not vary across societies, and are resistant to social policies. Clark examines and compares surnames in such diverse cases as modern Sweden and Qing Dynasty China. He demonstrates how fate is determined by ancestry and that almost all societies have similarly low social mobility rates. Challenging popular assumptions about mobility and revealing the deeply entrenched force of inherited advantage, The Son Also Rises is sure to prompt intense debate for years to come. Review: You family can go down as well as up - A fascinating work which exposes a lot of contemporary myths about social mobility. If you are interested in family history and have worked out your genealogy it provides a fresh perspective too. The more I think about this topic, the more it makes me realise that a society of perfect social mobility would be absolutely hellish! Review: A new approach to looking at social mobility - Social mobility seems to be the hot topic today with Piketty's book being the center focus currently. Gregory Clark has a totally different approach to the subject and its analysis is insightful and unique. Gregory Clark approaches the topic of social mobility by looking at rare last names and analysing their relative frequency in high social status professions like law and medicine and uses the frequency data to see how much social mobility is implied by the relative frequency over long periods of time. The methodology is clever and the results are surprising. The book is split into three parts. The first is titled Social Mobility by Time and Place. As the section titled alludes, this section is about social mobility accross a variety of places that are assumed to have different mobility as well as different times in which most are taught that social mobility was very different from today. Social mobility via surname alaysis is undertaken in Sweden, the US, the UK and medieval England. The author then provides the framework for which the rest of the book is benchmarked against. In particular the author provides a framework for looking at social mobility, rather than typical analysis of income mobility. The author then looks at various social models and does similar surname analysis. The author looks at India and the caste system and the persistence of surnames in India among different professions and different regions and religious subgroups. India is considered a society with extreme social stratification due to its caste system and the evidence supports the lack of mobility. The author then looks at China and Taiwan. China is always a fascinating example due to the total levelling of society through Mao's revolutionary regime and Taiwan was a country for which the Nationalists only moved to post the Communist victory. The authors also discuss Korean and Japan, societies which are percieved to be very level among the citizens and also Chile a society that is very divided, like most of South America. The author also discusses Gypsy populations in the UK. The author discusses how all the various regimes can be embedded within his framework. The author then concludes with his final section The Good Society. This summarizes the material and the author discusses social policy as a function of his results. The author concludes that social mobility is biologically limited and should not be the focus of policy makers; he focuses on some factors which can be partially adressed by policy like whether groups are endogamous our exogamous. But for the most part the author lays out the repurcussions of his results which support the fact that a surname analysis is evidence of social darwinism being true. The Son Also Rises is definitely an interesting take on social mobility and the difference between social mobility and income generational income distributional shifts. In particular that income might have a distribution implied by gini coefficients but that social mobility is in effect much more mean reverting that social mobility is much more constrained than gini coefficients imply. The author shows throughout the book whether one is focused on pre industrial revolution or inclusive modern Sweden the correlation within higher social standing and lower social standing families on a multi generation basis for profession is in the .7-.85 range. The author's data set is focused on rare names analysis and as a result is a partial analysis of society and one has to assume that rare names are a representative subset of society at large (which seems a reasonable assumption). Perhaps the next step is an analysis based on mitochondrial DNA (sounds like Gattica). The author does at the end also look at families with adopted children and studies the explanatory power of adopted parents influence, which shows they have influence over educational attainment but less on social mobility. This is an interesting work and will be contentious, it is hard to read this and not think there is an element of truth to the underlying principles but there are many assumptions in this and the method of analysis is not an unbiased statistical one as it has to be based off of particular small subsets of society and their dispersion, or lack of over time, rather than larger pockets of society (like the last name Smith for example). ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #522,078 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #53 in Welsh History #238 in Income Inequality #585 in Sociology of Class | | Customer Reviews | 4.4 out of 5 stars 159 Reviews | ## Images ![The Son Also Rises: Surnames and the History of Social Mobility (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World) - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71ZJpmOSB0L.jpg) ## Available Options This product comes in different **Media Format** options. ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ You family can go down as well as up *by J***2 on March 26, 2015* A fascinating work which exposes a lot of contemporary myths about social mobility. If you are interested in family history and have worked out your genealogy it provides a fresh perspective too. The more I think about this topic, the more it makes me realise that a society of perfect social mobility would be absolutely hellish! ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ A new approach to looking at social mobility *by A***N on June 23, 2014* Social mobility seems to be the hot topic today with Piketty's book being the center focus currently. Gregory Clark has a totally different approach to the subject and its analysis is insightful and unique. Gregory Clark approaches the topic of social mobility by looking at rare last names and analysing their relative frequency in high social status professions like law and medicine and uses the frequency data to see how much social mobility is implied by the relative frequency over long periods of time. The methodology is clever and the results are surprising. The book is split into three parts. The first is titled Social Mobility by Time and Place. As the section titled alludes, this section is about social mobility accross a variety of places that are assumed to have different mobility as well as different times in which most are taught that social mobility was very different from today. Social mobility via surname alaysis is undertaken in Sweden, the US, the UK and medieval England. The author then provides the framework for which the rest of the book is benchmarked against. In particular the author provides a framework for looking at social mobility, rather than typical analysis of income mobility. The author then looks at various social models and does similar surname analysis. The author looks at India and the caste system and the persistence of surnames in India among different professions and different regions and religious subgroups. India is considered a society with extreme social stratification due to its caste system and the evidence supports the lack of mobility. The author then looks at China and Taiwan. China is always a fascinating example due to the total levelling of society through Mao's revolutionary regime and Taiwan was a country for which the Nationalists only moved to post the Communist victory. The authors also discuss Korean and Japan, societies which are percieved to be very level among the citizens and also Chile a society that is very divided, like most of South America. The author also discusses Gypsy populations in the UK. The author discusses how all the various regimes can be embedded within his framework. The author then concludes with his final section The Good Society. This summarizes the material and the author discusses social policy as a function of his results. The author concludes that social mobility is biologically limited and should not be the focus of policy makers; he focuses on some factors which can be partially adressed by policy like whether groups are endogamous our exogamous. But for the most part the author lays out the repurcussions of his results which support the fact that a surname analysis is evidence of social darwinism being true. The Son Also Rises is definitely an interesting take on social mobility and the difference between social mobility and income generational income distributional shifts. In particular that income might have a distribution implied by gini coefficients but that social mobility is in effect much more mean reverting that social mobility is much more constrained than gini coefficients imply. The author shows throughout the book whether one is focused on pre industrial revolution or inclusive modern Sweden the correlation within higher social standing and lower social standing families on a multi generation basis for profession is in the .7-.85 range. The author's data set is focused on rare names analysis and as a result is a partial analysis of society and one has to assume that rare names are a representative subset of society at large (which seems a reasonable assumption). Perhaps the next step is an analysis based on mitochondrial DNA (sounds like Gattica). The author does at the end also look at families with adopted children and studies the explanatory power of adopted parents influence, which shows they have influence over educational attainment but less on social mobility. This is an interesting work and will be contentious, it is hard to read this and not think there is an element of truth to the underlying principles but there are many assumptions in this and the method of analysis is not an unbiased statistical one as it has to be based off of particular small subsets of society and their dispersion, or lack of over time, rather than larger pockets of society (like the last name Smith for example). ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ He's done it again.... *by W***Y on June 17, 2014* Michael Clemens observed that in two books, Greg Clark has managed to remind us of a writer from Michigan: First, "A farewell to alms," and now "The son also rises." Imagination runs wild in search of, "What next?" The message is straightforward if not simple: Heredity matters. There are more Pepys at Oxford in the 20th century than chance alone could have predicted. There are thirteen surnames of elite standing in north Zhejiang and south Jiangsu that have managed to survive well into the Peoples Republic of China. Genes matter and changing the standing of families has taken generations. Piketty says we are headed back to a Gilded Age; Clark's studies support that view with vigor. Too bad his excellent book appeared without the recognition accorded "Capital in the 21st century." --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.tn/products/28982523-the-son-also-rises-surnames-and-the-history-of-social](https://www.desertcart.tn/products/28982523-the-son-also-rises-surnames-and-the-history-of-social) --- *Product available on Desertcart Tunisia* *Store origin: TN* *Last updated: 2026-09-23*