Beyond Coal and Steel

Lutz Raphael is Professor of Contemporary History at Trier University.

• AcknowledgementsIntroductionSECTION I. A BIRD'S EYE VIEWThree National Labour Regimes in Transition1. Industrial labour in Western Europe after the economic boom from the perspective of the political economy2. Farewell to class struggle and fixed social structures3. Political history from below: labour conflict and new social movements4. Industrial citizens and wage earners: labour relations, social benefits and wages5. Skilled work, production knowledge and educational capital: conflicts of interpretation and readjustments.SECTION II.  CLOSE-UPSFields of experience and horizons of expectation in times of upheaval6. Life courses, work and unemployment in times of upheaval7. Transformations in company regimes8. Industrial districts, social spaces, ‘problem neighbourhoods’ and owner-occupier areas: social spaces and deindustrializationConclusion: The history of deindustrialization as a history of contemporary problems.List of IllustrationsSources and literatureNotesIndex

"This is an outstanding study of a major topical theme: the changes that have taken place in the structure, organization and orientation of the working class during the process of deindustrialization that has been underway since the 1960s. No one has analysed this transformation with this degree of thoroughness before, and, as Raphael shows, we are still living with its consequences. This is certainly an important book, and it has no rivals at the level of serious scholarship."—Colin Crouch, University of Warwick"This is comparative social history of deindustrialization in Western Europe at its best. Lutz Raphael has written an entirely convincing book that analyses transformations in the world of work, changes in the understanding of social classes and the impact of labour conflicts. Anyone wanting to know about changing social structures, life-course narratives of workers, unemployment, factory life, working-class neighbourhoods and de-skilling as well as re-skilling should read this book." "—Stefan Berger, Ruhr-Universität Bochum