The World Wide Web of Work

The World Wide Web of Work Synopsis

Global Labour History has rapidly gained ground as a field of study in the 21st century, attracting interest in the Global South and North alike. Scholars derive inspiration from the broad perspective and the effort to perceive connections between global trends over time in work and labour relations, incorporating slaves, indentured labourers and sharecroppers, housewives and domestic servants.

Casting this sweeping analytical gaze, The World Wide Web of Work discusses the core concepts 'capitalism' and 'workers', and refines notions such as 'coerced labour', 'household strategies' and 'labour markets'. It explores in new ways the connections between labourers in different parts of the world, arguing that both 'globalisation' and modern labour management originated in agriculture in the Global South and were only later introduced in Northern industrial settings. It reveals that 19th-century chattel slavery was frequently replaced by other forms of coerced labour, and it reconstructs the laborious 20th-century attempts of the International Labour Organisation to regulate labour standards supra-nationally. The book also pays attention to the relational inequality through which workers in wealthy countries benefit from the exploitation of those in poor countries. The final part addresses workers' resistance and acquiescence: why collective actions often have unanticipated consequences; why and how workers sometimes organise massive flights from exploitation and oppression; and why 'proletarian revolutions' took place in pre-industrial or industrialising countries and never in fully developed capitalist societies.

Praise for The World Wide Web of Work

'One of the foremost champions of global labour history, Marcel van der Linden, provides his readers here with a masterful analysis of key concepts that are necessary for understanding the manifold connections between different forms of labour in diverse parts of the world, which van der Linden also surveys with his usual clarity and precision.' Stefan Berger, Professor for Social History and director of the Institute for Social Movements at Ruhr-University Bochum

'A near astonishing geographical and temporal breadth in The World Wide Web of Work takes labour history far beyond the factory worker who is generally its main subject.' Avi Chomsky, Professor of History and Coordinator of Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies at Salem State University in Massachusetts

'In this book Marcel van der Linden brings key elements needed to understand the history of work as it has been experienced over the last 200 years. In its concise distillation of the essence, significant geographic and temporal scope, and the author's demonstrated mastery of the field the book is a singular achievement.'
Diane Kirkby, Professor of Law and Humanities at the University of Technology Sydney, and Editor of Labour History, the journal of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History

'The World Wide Web of Work is essential reading for labour historians and an amazing accomplishment, taking us through time and space, and carefully charting out the field of global labour history - its challenges, concepts, connections and conflicts.' Linda Clarke, Professor of European Industrial Relations, Westminster Business School

'The book is wholeheartedly recommended. It joins the publications of many others at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam and elsewhere, who like to see things from 'below' and in truly global and historically informed perspectives. It also offers meaningful methodological guidance and insights on how to accomplish cutting-edge labour relations research from the perspective of the Global South and informed by history. What this book does well is that it poses many questions and areas for further research, and provides concepts, inspirations, guidelines and, of course, a historically informed context for a researcher to explore further.'
BJIR: An International Journal of Employment Relations

'Chapter 17 [is] intriguing […]There is also a very relevant epilogue that proposes an assessment of the crisis in political representation of workers in the 21st century.'
Revista Mundos do Trabalho

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