Arbeitergeschichte

Abstract

This article deals with the relations, tensions, and points of convergence between global, national, regional, and local labor historiography. It takes a European perspective on the field and proposes some new approaches. Further, the article seeks to show how different topics might be fruitful for future research and might allow for collaboration between historians working both with more local and more global scopes. These topics include: free and unfree labor and related debates on the changing concept of the working class, the informalization and precarity of work in the past and present, changing life-course patterns, and trans-border connections between national labor movements. Comparisons across time, across cultural borders, and the analysis of entanglements can help strengthen historians’ research.