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Preface

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 February 2024

Erik de Gier
Affiliation:
Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
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Summary

The idea for this study was born while writing a book on capitalist workingmen's paradises in different countries in the golden age of capitalism. That book was published in 2016 by Amsterdam University Press (AUP) (De Gier, 2016). In the golden age of capitalism, generally spanning the decades between 1880–1930, major fiction writers also dealt with welfare capitalism in industrial novels in these countries. Well-known examples include Charles Dickens's Hard Times (first published in 1854) in Great Britain and Émile Zola's Germinal (first published in 1885) in France (Dickens, 1854/1993; Zola, 1885/1991). In the same context, it was obvious that the writing of industrial novels continued in modern times, after the turn of the 19th century. In literary writing naturalism was succeeded by realism. In general, this implied more systematic attention by authors to reinforcing the empirical underpinnings of these novels. For this reason, the distinction between realist or modernist industrial novels and academic sociology blurred to some extent. Nevertheless, until today industrial sociology has neglected entirely the twentieth-century industrial novel as a meaningful research source. This book tries to bridge that gap. It is based largely on synthesizing and analysing a significant number of 20th-century modernist industrial novels in five countries. All these novels are based on empirical fundamentals, and will be compared in successive time periods, from about 1900 until today. Any remaining omissions and inaccuracies in the book remain the author's responsibility.

Type
Chapter
Information
Documentary Industrial Novels and the Sociology of Work in the Twentieth Century
The United States, the Soviet Union and Western Europe
, pp. 11 - 12
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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  • Preface
  • Erik de Gier, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
  • Book: Documentary Industrial Novels and the Sociology of Work in the Twentieth Century
  • Online publication: 20 February 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9789048552399.001
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  • Preface
  • Erik de Gier, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
  • Book: Documentary Industrial Novels and the Sociology of Work in the Twentieth Century
  • Online publication: 20 February 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9789048552399.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Preface
  • Erik de Gier, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
  • Book: Documentary Industrial Novels and the Sociology of Work in the Twentieth Century
  • Online publication: 20 February 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9789048552399.001
Available formats
×