How and why should we study Victorian Britain? The answer to this question used to be quite straightforward. It was the Victorian contribution to modern politics which stood out above all else. Today we are not so sure. This book suggest that politics are still central, but must be more broadly construed, as a pervasive part of Victorian culture as a whole.

The global impact of Asian production of the wage goods consumed in North America and Europe is only now being recognized, and is far from being understood. Asian women, most only recently urbanized and in the waged work force, are at the center of a process of intensive labor for minimal wages that has upended the entire global economy. First published in 1997, this prescient study is the best available summary of this crucial process as it took hold at the very end of the twentieth century. This new edition brings the discussion up to 2011 with an extensive introduction by world-famous...

Max Weber and The Protestant Ethic Twin Histories presents an entirely new portrait of Max Weber, one of the most prestigious social theorists in recent history, using his most famous work, The Protestant Ethic and the "Spirit" of Capitalism, as its central point of reference. It offers an intellectual biography of Weber framed along historical lines - something which has never been done before. It re-evaluates The Protestant Ethic--a text surprisingly neglected by scholars - supplying a missing intellectual and chronological centre to Weber's life and...