This book asserts the importance of the lives, aspirations and actions of ordinary workers. Their history is as important for understanding the past as the activities of their rulers. An indispensable volume for all historians of work, workers and organized labour, it will be immensely valuable to those engaged in labour movements who believe that, in the face of globalization, labour's future depends on understanding its past in all its complexities. It is published to commemorate the creation of the Society for the Study of Labour History in I960 which, as Eric Hobsbawm remembers in his Preface,' made British labour history for a time the most globally influential in the field'.