North & South is awesome - and so is the BBC series!!
but in all honesty, N&S is a fantastic text for Individual and Society because of the multiple layers of the individual v. society in it: women, trade unionism (BIG I&S things there with Higgins, Boucher etc.), Margaret, Thornton and so on. Minor characters are used to emphasis the issues of the individual and society, either illuminating particular facets to the major characters (e.g. Edith, who is technically the "ideal woman", essentially exposes how individual Margaret is), or to be a case in themselves of the individual and society (e.g. Mrs Thornton, who is an atypical woman during this period).
Hopefully with the advent of the BBC series, there'll be a lot more critical responses/assessments of North and South emerging!
-Courtney