Labour and Enterprise: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present

This volume explores the changing relations between employers and workers in industrial production from the earliest phases of industrialization to the present day. It examines how these relations have developed in different contexts and places, and the ways in which they have influenced the process of industrialization.
The book brings together a number of different approaches and the topics covered vary in theme and scope, including broad general surveys (for example, of the historical debate on the early factory masters, and of the principal trends in post–war industrial relations in Europe) and more specialist case studies. The contributors include labour, social and economic historians, and the geographical spread ranges from Europe to the USA and Japan. While each of the chapters covers major new themes, the volume′s originality lies in examining the theme of industrial relations in ways that invite broader comparative thinking.

Editors′ Introduction.

1. Entrepreneurs, Managers and Businessmen in 18th Century Britain: Peter Mathias.

2. Labour and the Process of Industrialization in the First Phases of British Industrialization: Peter Mathias.

3. Women and Work in Late Victorian Britain: Pat Thane.

4. ′In Want of Union′; Industrial Relations in the British Pottery Industry 1870–1930: Richard Whipp.

5. Management, Labour and the State in France 1871–1939: Industrial Relations in the Third Republic: Roger Magraw.

6. Entrepreneurs and Economic Growth: the Case of Italy: John A. Davis.

7. Industrial Workers, Employers and the State in Nazi Germany 1933–1945: Stephen Salter.

8. Employers and Workers in Japan Between the Wars: Takao Matsumura.

9. The Struggle for Control of the American Workplace 1920–1985: P. K. Edwards.

Peter Mathias was previously Chichele Professor of Economic History and Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford.

John A. Davis hold the Emiliana Pasca Noether Chair in Modern Italian History at the University of Connecticut.

".the editors are to be congratulated for encouraging interest in accounting history through a publication which is the first of its kind." Business History, April 1997
"These are useful essays for students..." Labour History Review, Winter 1998