The new middle class in India and Brazil – Green perspectives?

The book is available in bookshops and at: Amazon India. For a review copy please contact HBF India office.

Since the beginning of the new millennium, the growth of the “new 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?

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.

The book is edited by Dawid Danilo Bartelt and Axel Harneit-Sievers, published by Academic Foundation in partnership with the Heinrich Böll Foundation and contains contributions from 18 researchers and social activists.