Over 20 million people are working part-time in the United States, more than six million of them involuntarily. Both "Time" and "Fortune" magazines have run recent cover stories about this constrained faction of the workforce, who tend to earn on average 40 percent less than full-time workers. Addressing this disturbing trend, Chris Tilly presents a current, in-depth analysis of how U.S. businesses use part-time employment, and why they are using it more and more.

Worker demand for part-time jobs peaked more than twenty years ago, but employers' desires for cheap labor and schedule...

The catalyst for this book is the fact that noted sociologist Charles Tilly, upon his death in 2008, left one completed chapter of an unfinished manuscript entitled Cities, States, and Trust Networks, examining the relationships between cities and nation-states over the sweep of history, and in particular the role of trust networks in mediating this relationship. Though this was the catalyst, the book serves a broader purpose: to survey recent frontier work on cities, nation-states, and the relations between the two in historical and contemporary perspective.

Essays in the...

The catalyst for this book is the fact that noted sociologist Charles Tilly, upon his death in 2008, left one completed chapter of an unfinished manuscript entitled Cities, States, and Trust Networks, examining the relationships between cities and nation-states over the sweep of history, and in particular the role of trust networks in mediating this relationship. Though this was the catalyst, the book serves a broader purpose: to survey recent frontier work on cities, nation-states, and the relations between the two in historical and contemporary perspective.

Essays in the...