Perry R. Duis, Challenging Chicago: Coping with Everyday Life, 1837–1920. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1998. xiii + 430pp. Illustrations. Select bibliography. $29.95 hbk. - Volume 28 Issue 1

Ronald D. Cassell. Medical Charities, Medical Politics: The Irish Dispensary System and the Poor Law, 1836–1872. (Royal Historical Society Studies in History, New Series.) Rochester, N.Y.,: Boydell & Brewer. 1997. Pp. x, 181. $63.00. ISBN 0-86193-228-5. - Volume 30 Issue 4

In this major new book leading sociologists, economists, and social psychologists present their highly original research into changes in jobs in Britain in the 1980s. Combining large-scale sample surveys, personal life-histories, and case studies of towns, employers, and worker groups, their findings give clear and often surprising answers to questions debated by social and economic observers in all advanced countries. Does technolgoy destroy skills or rebuild them? how does skill affect the attitudes of employees and their managers towards their jobs? Are women gaining greater skill equality with men, or are they still stuck on the lower rungs of the skill and occupational ladders? The book also takes up neglected issues (what do employees really mean by a skilled job? how does skill-change link with changes in social values?) and challenges and discredits the widely held view that new technology has de-skilled the workforce. Skill and Occupational Change exploits the richest single data-set available in contemporary Europe and the authors exemplify many new techniques for researching skills at work: as an economic resource, as a motor of occupational change, and as a basis for personal careers and identity. It provides the most comprehensive, authoritative, and carefully researched set of conclusions to date on skill trends and their implications and draws the authoritative new map of skill-change in British society.

David R. Green. From Artisans to Paupers: Economic Change and Poverty in London, 1790–1870. Aldershot, U.K.: Scolar Press; distributed by Ashgate Publishing Company, Brookfield, Vt. 1995. Pp. xvii, 298. $76.95. ISBN 1-85928-033-1. - Volume 28 Issue 4

Abstract The chapters of this book are based on the research carried out for the Social Change and Economic Life Initiative (SCELI) supported by the Economic and Social Research Council. SCELI was launched in 1985, just over a decade after Braverman’s (1974) influential publication on the degradation of work. This book had led to a continuing and intense debate over the direction and nature of change in the skill level of jobs, and perhaps more fundamentally over the meaning or social significance of the terms ‘skill’ and ‘skilled work’. Developing alongside this debate over deskilling was a second, over flexibility in work tasks and pressures for new systems of work to meet changing competitive conditions and new (especially electronic) technologies. Intermingling with both these debates, but always retaining its own dynamic, was yet another, over gender and the relationships between social and gender divisions and the meaning and concept of skill.

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Jules Ginswick (ed.), Labour and the Poor in England and Wales, 1849–1851. The Letters to the Morning Chronicle from the Correspondents in the Manufacturing and Mining Districts, the Towns of Liverpool and Birmingham, and the Rural Districts. Vol. I, Lancashire, Cheshire and Yorkshire. Vol. II, Northumberland and Durham, Staffordshire, the Midlands. Vol. III, South Wales – North Wales. London: Frank Cass1983. Vol. I, lxxxvi + 229 pp. Vol. II, viii + 216 pp. Vol. III, xii + 252 pp. Cased: £19.50 per volume. Paper: £9.50. - Volume 12

Mark D. Neuman. The Speenhamland County: Poverty and the Poor Laws in Berkshire, 1782-1834. (Modern British History Series.) New York: Garland Publishing, Inc.1982. Pp. 263. $33.00. - Volume 15 Issue 3

Charles F. Bahmueller. The National Charity Company: Jeremy Bentham's Silent Revolution. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 1981. Pp. xi, 272. $25.00 Get access Bahmueller Charles F.. The National Charity Company: Jeremy Bentham's Silent Revolution. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 1981. Pp. xi, 272. $25.00. Michael E. Rose Michael E. Rose University of Manchester Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 88, Issue 4, October 1983, Pages 979–980, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/88.4.979-a Published: 01 October 1983

A. E. Dingle. The Campaign for Prohibition in Victorian England: The United Kingdom Alliance, 1872–1895. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press. 1980. Pp. 233. $21.00 Get access Dingle A. E.. The Campaign for Prohibition in Victorian England: The United Kingdom Alliance, 1872–1895. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press. 1980. Pp. 233. $21.00. Michael E. Rose Michael E. Rose University of Manchester Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 86, Issue 5, December 1981, Page 1091, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/86.5.1091 Published: 01 December 1981

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J. H. Treble, Urban Poverty in Britain, 1830–1914. London: B. T. Batsford, 1979. 216 pp. £12.50 - James Dawson Burn, The Autobiography of a Beggar Boy. [Edited with an Introduction by David Vincent.] London: Europa Publications, 1978. vi + 205 pp. £8.50. - Volume 7

Anne Digby. Pauper Palaces. (Studies in Economic History.) Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul. 1978. Pp. x, 266. $17.50 Digby Anne. Pauper Palaces. (Studies in Economic History.) Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul. 1978. Pp. x, 266. $17.50. Michael E. Rose Michael E. Rose University of Manchester Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 85, Issue 3, June 1980, Page 629, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/85.3.629 Published: 01 June 1980

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An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.

Arthur Seldon (ed.), The Long Debate on Poverty. Eight essays on industrialisation and ‘the Condition of England’ [“IEA Readings 9”]. London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1973. xvi + 243 pp. £2·50. - Volume 1