Class and Other Identities

With the onset of a more conservative political climate in the 1980s, social and especially labour history saw a decline in the popularity that they had enjoyed throughout the 1960s and 1970s. This led to much debate on its future and function within the historical discipline as a whole. Some critics declared it dead altogether. Others have proposed a change of direction and a more or less exclusive focus on images and texts. The most constructive proposals have suggested that labour history in the past concentrated too much on class and that other identities of working people should be taken into account to a larger extent than they had been previously, such as gender, religion, and ethnicity. Although class as a social category is still as valid as it has been before, the questions now to be asked are to what extent non-class identities shape working people''s lives and mentalities and how these are linked with the class system. In this volume some of the leading European historians of labour and the working classes address these questions. Two non-European scholars comment on their findings from an Indian, resp. American, point of view. The volume is rounded off by a most useful bibliography of recent studies in European labour history, class, gender, religion, and ethnicity.

With the onset of a more conservative political climate in the 1980s, social and especially labour history saw a decline in the popularity that they had enjoyed throughout the 1960s and 1970s. This led to much debate on its future and function within the historical discipline as a whole. Some critics declared it dead altogether. Others have proposed a change of direction and a more or less exclusive focus on images and texts. The most constructive proposals have suggested that labour history in the past concentrated too much on class and that other identities of working people should be taken into account to a larger extent than they had been previously, such as gender, religion, and ethnicity. Although class as a social category is still as valid as it has been before, the questions now to be asked are to what extent non-class identities shape working people's lives and mentalities and how these are linked with the class system. In this volume some of the leading European historians of labour and the working classes address these questions. Two non-European scholars comment on their findings from an Indian, resp. American, point of view. The volume is rounded off by a most useful bibliography of recent studies in European labour history, class, gender, religion, and ethnicity.

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1. Introduction
Marcel van der Linden and Lex Heerma van Voss

Issues: Chapter 2. New Trends in Labour Movement Historiography: A Perspective
Jürgen Kocka

Chapter 3. Class and Labour History
Mike Savage

Chapter 4. Gender in Labour and Working-Class History
Eileen Yeo

Chapter 5. Ethnicity and Labour History: With Special Reference Irish Migration
John Belchem

Chapter 6. The Role of Religion in Social and Labour History
Patrick Pasture

Chapter 7. Two Labour Histories or One?
Alice Kessler-Harris

Chapter 8. Paradigm Lost? The Futures of Labour History
Janaki Nair

References:
Main West European Labour History Periodicals, 1911–2000
Bibliographical Essays on the Development of West European Labour History, 1965–2000
Bibliographies of West European Labour Historiography, 1965–2000
Biographical Dictionaries
Multiple-Country Surveys of West European Labour History
A Brief Guide to Relevant Websites
Select and Annotated Bibliography, 1990–2000

Notes on Contributors
Index