This book seeks to renew and expand the field of British labour studies, setting out new avenues for research so as to widen the audience and academic interest in the field, in a context which makes the revisiting of past struggles and dilemmas more pressing than ever.

The labour markets of OECD and emerging economies are undergoing major transformations. The widespread slow-down in productivity and wage growth and high levels of income inequality in many countries are coupled with structural changes linked to the digital revolution, globalisation and ...

Explores the relationship between Britain and the Spanish Civil War. This book explains the war's legacy and longer-term impact on Britain, and presents a chronological progression from the Civil War to the post-war Franco era. It also provides a discussion of the importance of loss and memory.

Poster art is one of the most powerful means of communication and the examples collected in this book speak eloquently of the battle for fair wages, decent conditions and social justice that has characterised British trade unions.

« The book presents the findings of a four-year study of the challenges facing trade unions and their responses in ten west European countries. The project involved a substantial number of interviews with key union representatives and academic experts in each country, together with the collection of a large amount of union documentation and background material. The book gives an account of trade unionism in each country, the main recent challenges that unions have faced, and responses in terms of recruitment and mobilisation; organizational restructuring; new approaches to collective bargaining; changing political strategies; and international activities. The analytical starting point is that trade unions are conservative institutions containing significant veto points to organizational change, but at the same time can display dynamism and innovation, and that external challenges can therefore stimulate important internal adaptation. The book engages with the debates of the past two decades on union modernization and revitalization, and more generally with theories of institutional change and with the literature on varieties of capitalism. The central theme is that while trade unions do not easily change identities and core practices, they are not locked into inertia. Trade unions are not unitary actors but are internally contested organizations, and internal conflict is itself a potential source of dynamism. The literature on "revitalization" has tended to divide between the over-optimistic and the over-pessimistic; this study presents a more nuanced and differentiated account. In particular, it attempts to identify some of the key internal and external conditions for effective strategic innovation. »--

The Economic History Society commissioned this series which aims to provide a guide to current interpretations of the key themes of economic and social history in which advances have been made or in which there has been significant debate. The books are intended to be a springboard to futher reading rather than a set of pre-packaged conclusions.