Despite an abundance of literature on the Second International relatively little is known about the work of the International Secretariat of National Trade Union Centres (ISNTUC). Foundect in 1901 by the German and Scandinavian labour leaders, this exclusively trade union International (the forerunner of the post-war International Federation of Trade Unions) included representatives of most of the major labour movements of Europe and the USA. Under German leadership it occupied itself with exclusively trade union issues, a limitation which was contested by revolutionary labour federations. Study of the ISNTUC therefore reveals much about conceptions of internationalism within the internationally organized labour movement.

The postwar welfare state, as epitomized by Beveridge's Plan, seemed to mark a major departure from social policy's traditional Bismarckian ambition to ameliorate and preserve existing social circumstances. Many have found the reason for this turnabout in the power that parties of the Left achieved in the immediate postwar years, in Britain and especially in Scandinavia where reform was most pronounced. The article questions this political pedigree by examining the origins of postwar reforms, in this case in Sweden, in the ambitions and interests of the bourgeois parties and by analyzing the initial reluctance of the Social Democrats to follow the new reforming initiatives coming from the parties of the middle classes.

This article questions the prevalent assumption that prior to 1914 the Irish in Britain were unquestioningly attached to the Liberal party. It suggests that Home Rule forced the Irish into wider political sympathies which embraced both radical Liberalism and Labour. The Irish in Manchester are highlighted and the “progressive” nature of local Nationalism described. It is also denied that the transfer of Irish loyalties to Labour was proof of the emergence of a class politics or of their integration into the unskilled working-class. It is suggested that this was, in fact, evidence of their continued cultural and political distinctiveness.

Seven factors that may have contributed to the national integration of the working classes in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Russia 1871–1914 are explored: the national process of capital accumulation, the international prestige of the nation, the coming of interregional connections, compulsory education, suffrage, the role of the army, and the introduction of social insurance systems. The (provisional) results of this exploration show a clustering of integration-promoting factors in Britain, Germany and France, which is to a certain extent lacking in Italy and Russia.

During the last 15 years or so, the study of Chinese history in the United States and Europe has been transformed through new foci of interest as well as the employment of social science methodologies. This article surveys a selected number of recent publications and categorizes them according to five themes: “commoners, women, and outsiders”, “the structural approach”, “state and society”, “China and l'histoire globale”, and “China and the West”. It is demonstrated that the continuities within Chinese development, including the progressive demographic expansion of the Chinese population, the formulation and exercise of gentry rulership, the general vigour of the economy, and increased regional and subregional agricultural/industrial production and distribution are not confined to specific dynastic periods and should be viewed in a long-term context.

In comparative perspective, U.S. employers have been unusually hostile to unions. Their labor policies varied from one time and industry to another, however, in defiance of familiar interpretations of American “exceptionalism”. It is argued that before World War I, open shops and trade agreements represented different solutions for common labor problems. The timing of changes in technology and industrial structure relative to union growth determined which strategy would be more attractive to employers. This argument is developed by comparing one open shop industry (the machine trades) with its British counterpart and, more briefly, with some U.S. industries where trade agreements prevailed.

Historians have recently paid serious attention to the roles of working-class groups in the creation of British social policy, but have largely ignored involvement by sweated workers. This article reveals among chainmakers long-run campaigns against sweating – successively demanding state action to abolish domestic workshops, regulate hours, restrict female work, fix rates for the job, and institute co-operative production. Failure in these campaigns led, with major initiatives from female workers, to advocacy of a statutory minimum wage. The Trade Boards Act (1909) reflected such pressures for state aid, though the form the legislation took brought only limited benefits.

During the conference of the International Association of Labour History Institutions (Paris 1986) Lars Wessman, a member of the Scandinavian delegation, asked me to make an informal speech on the reorganization of the IISH. Since I hardly expected anyone to be interested in this subject, I felt no reservations and was pleased to agree. After consulting our Parisian host, Prof. Alain Prost, we informed all those present that there was to be an exchange of ideas on the IISH reorganization.