This volume seeks to reassess ancient Greek and Roman society and its economy in examining skilled labour and professionalism.

This multidisciplinary book develops an original framework for understanding skills, skilled work, and surrounding policies. It establishes the concept and measurement of skill, sets out a theoretical framework for skills analyses, and investigates the roles of employers, workers, and other social actors.

First published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book is a history of ancient Greek and Roman professionals: doctors, seers, sculptors, teachers, musicians, actors, athletes and soldiers. These individuals were specialist workers deemed to possess rare skills, for which they had undergone a period of training. They operated in a competitive labour market in which proven expertise was a key commodity. Success in the highest regarded professions was often rewarded with a significant income and social status. Rivalries between competing practitioners could be fierce. Yet on other occasions, skilled workers co-operated in developing associations that were intended to facilitate and promote the work of professionals. The oldest collegial code of conduct, the Hippocratic Oath, a version of which is still taken by medical professionals today, was similarly the creation of a prominent ancient medical school. This collection of articles reveals the crucial role of occupation and skill in determining the identity and status of workers in antiquity.

Originally published in 1982 and now reissued with a new Preface by Stephen Wood the contributors of this book discuss the issues surrounding the organization of labour. They use insights from industrial sociology, historical research and Marxist-Feminist debates. In particular they stress that work organization cannot be seen simply as a reflection of the strategy of an omniscient management; any examination of it must involve product and labour markets, technology, trade unionism and, above all, the way in which production systems are jointly created out of the interrelationship between management and workforces. The Degradation of Work? asks if there has been a general de-skilling and routinization of jobs and if ‘skilled’ jobs are really any different from semi-skilled or unskilled ones.