Introduction: the cultural value of work; Part I. Labor in Ethnohistorical Settings; 1. It isn't Santa Claus coming to town: European expansion into Arctic environments; 2. Dispossession and conscription: Euro-American use of Native American labor; 3. Labor for forests: European expansion through naval stores; Part II. Values of Forms of Labour; 4. The value of reproductive labor; 5. Domestic economic labour, part I; 6. Domestic economic labor, Part II; 7. Cultural labor in migration economies; Part III. Labor in Economic and Anthropological Theory; 8. Labor, value, culture; 9. An anthropology of economics; Appendix A: a note on the qualifications of the author.