Key publications

We work because we have to, but also because we like it: from hunting-gathering more than 700,000 years ago to the present era of zoom meetings, humans have always worked to make the world around them serve their needs.

Bosma, U., The sugar plantation in India and Indonesia, Industrial Production, 1770-2010 (CUP 2013).

Hofmeester, K. & P. de Zwart, Colonialism, institutional change and shifts in global labour relations (Amsterdam 2018, AUP).

This publication explains why it is important to include the history of labor and labor relations in Africa in Global Labor History.

We can safely assume that from 1500 to 1650 much of the world’s population worked to earn their living. Though we know roughly what kind of tasks people performed, we know surprisingly little about their perception of work.

Linden, M. van der & K. H. Roth (eds.), Beyond Marx. Theorising the Global Labour Relations of the Twenty-First Century (Leiden and Boston, Brill, 2013).

Linden, M. van der & M. Rodríguez Garciá, On Coerced Labor Work and Compulsion after Chattel Slavery (Leiden and Boston, Brill, 2016).

Lucassen, J. & L. Lucassen, Eds., Globalising Migration History. The Eurasian experience (16th-21st centuries) (Leiden and Boston, Brill, 2014).

Lucassen, J. & L. Lucassen, "Theorizing Cross-cultural migrations: the case of Eurasia since 1500." Social Science History 41(2017) 3, 445-475.

Rossum, M. van & J. Kamp (eds.), Desertion in the Early Modern World : a comparative history (London, Bloomsbury 2016).

Rossum, M. van & K. Fatah-Black, ‘Beyond profability. The Dutch Transatlantic slave trade and its economic impact’, Slavery and Abolition 36 (2015) 1, 63-83.