Jürgen Kocka taught Social History at the University of Bielefeld for many years, after which he was appointed Professor of History of the Industrial World at the Free University of Berlin and Research Professor at Berlin Social Science Research Centre (WZB). He has published widely in the field of Modern History, particularly Social and Economic History of Europe, 18th-20th centuries. His publications in the English language include Facing Total War. German Society 1914-1918 (Berg, 1984), Industrial Culture and Bourgeois Society. Business, Labor, and Bureaucracy in Modern Germany (Berghahn, 1999), Civil Society and Dictatorship in Modern German History (University Press of New England, 2010) and Comparative and Transnational History. Central European Approaches and New Perspectives (Berghahn 2009, edited together with Heinz-Gerhard Haupt).

Chapter 1. Work as a Problem in European History
Jürgen Kocka

Chapter 2. Discourses on Work and Labour in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-century Germany
Josef Ehmer

Chapter 3. Beginnings of the Anthropology of Work: Nineteenth-century Social Scientists and Their Influence on Ethnography
Gerd Spittler

Chapter 4. The Vision(s) of Work in the Nineteenth-century German Labour Movement
Thomas Welskopp

Chapter 5. Work in Gender, Gender in Work: the German Case in a Comparative Perspective
Karin Hausen

Chapter 6. Trust as Work
Ute Frevert

Chapter 7. Soldiering and Working: Almost the Same? Reviewing People's Practices in Industry and Military in Twentieth-century Contexts
Alf Lüdtke

Chapter 8. Forced Labour in the Second World War: the German Case and Responsibility
Klaus Tenfelde

Chapter 9. Work, Max Weber, Confucianism: the Confucian Ethic and the Spirit of Japanese Capitalism
Sebastian Conrad

Chapter 10. What is Global Labour History Good For?
Andreas Eckert

Notes on Contributors

Bibliography

Index