Global Histories of Work is the first title in the new series "Work in Global and Historical Perspective". This collection of selected articles written by leading scholars in different disciplines provides both an introduction and numerous insights into themes, debates and methods of Global Labour History as they have been developed over the last years. The contributions to the volume discuss crucial historiographical developments; present different professions that have gained new attention in the context of an emerging Global Labour History; critically engage the boundaries of "free" labour...

In Enduring Change, Ju Li explores the concrete labor and social history of one particular Third-Front industrial complex in China from the 1960s to the globalized present. By connecting the micro-historical-ethnographic research with larger structural dynamics, Li provides a vivid, in-depth, and multi-layered account of how the transformative history of the past half-century has manifested itself in this small industrial site and how several generations of workers there have lived through these turbulences.

This study analyzes the establishment of an iron foundry in the interior 18^th-century of Angola. It was a fruit of the Portuguese Enlightenment, which encouraged investment in manufacturing, particularly of iron, a metal indispensable for military and technological purposes. However, the plans faced the resistance of African blacksmiths and founders who refused to learn foreign techniques and work processes. By emphasizing Central African agency, the book highlights the successful strategies of historical actors who scholars have largely ignored.

Based upon a wide...