David Byrne is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Durham University, UK. He has written on issues of inequality, methodology, and the complexity frame of reference. Books include Social Exclusion (2005), Applying Social Science (2011), Complexity Theory and the Social Sciences - The State of the Art (with Callaghan, 2014), and Paying for the Welfare State in the 21^st Century (with Ruane, 2017).

This book is about social class 'after industry'. 21^st Century post-industrial capitalism is different from the 'welfare' industrial capitalism of the twentieth century. The division between those who sell their labour and the owners of the means of production remains, but the ways in which class is lived in terms both of position in relation to inequality and how that and other factors structure identity have been transformed. The book takes a complex realist approach to the dynamics of individual lives, places and the whole social structure and their significance for class. A wide range of studies, both quantitative and qualitative, are drawn on to explore how 'life after industry' shapes class in all its aspects and the consequent potential for social change. The book will be of interest across the social sciences and beyond for those concerned with how class forms might translate into political action.