尼克森从分布在英格兰各个地方的十二个家族着手,并利用相关的信件、日记、和法律文书,讲述他们某段时间里的故事和生活中的危机。他描绘英国壮丽的景象,而这些家庭则构成了英国的牢固基础。故事从在600年前玫瑰战争中没落的Plumpton家族说起,到在格洛斯特郡拥有同一处土地并耕作1000年之久的Clifford家族结束。虽然乡绅阶级自认一些例如优雅,进取和骑士风度这样的核心价值是他们的重要特点,尼克森明确指出钱、斗争同血缘、家庭一样重要。乡绅阶层善于适应新的环境,他们的生活中无处不乏竞争和奋斗。生活没有确定性。生存下来才是关键,他们擅于骑墙,确保自己不吃亏。
At its best the gentry s idea of goodness and civilisation was attached to a particular placeand an interfolding of people, land, animals, food, housing and hospitality. A sense oforder, sociability and well-being was expressed through landscape. Everything dependedon an underpinning of money and a connection with London and Westminster was generallyessential to prosperity. Many of the gentry were members of the House of Commons.Survival was often contingent on being on the right side during the Wars of the Roses, atthe time of the Reformation, through the upheavals of the 17th century. In the 1940s SirRichard Acland, a Christian socialist, made over the bulk of his large estate in Devon to theNational Trust, but he was an exception. Not everyone was as ruthless as Henry Lascelles,who in the 1700s amassed a fortune through sugar plantations in Barbados and theexploitation of African slaves; but in general the story is of the political and economicdominance of acannily self-renewing class.
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