Overview

In the early 21st century, radically changing work locations and patterns have jolted society to reflect more on the ways that employment affects the body and the mind. This book provides historical context and insights to aid our understanding of this contemporary crisis, critically examining the history of a neglected area. In this oral-history based study, Arthur McIvor explores the history of health and safety from Second World War to the present, drawing extensively upon workers' own personal stories of occupational accidents, disasters, injury, disease, overwork and disability. It covers a wide range of workplace issues, from stories of TNT poisoning and overwork in wartime, through to the asbestos and black lung disasters, and the modern-day ‘epidemics’ of stress, burn-out and Covid-19. Opening conversations surrounding the harms caused by work, this book analyses how people have lived with occupational illness and disability, critiquing risk and work-health cultures, and the structural violence characteristic of industrial capitalism and neoliberal economics, in addition to discussing the agency of big business and advocacy of workers and victims. Focusing on class, gender, disability and race, this book uses an impressive range of secondary and primary sources, including government reports and enquiries drawing upon workers’ testimonies, Mine and Factory Inspectors Reports, HSE papers, newspapers, Mass Observation responses and oral history interviews.

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9781350236226

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Reviews

This is deeply moving and important account of how work is embodied; how the jobs British people have done damaged them physically and mentally. McIvor is the leading scholar of occupational illness and industry. His humanity and care for the subject is apparent on every page. -- Tim Strangleman, Professor of Sociology, University of Kent, UK McIvor takes us into the lived interior of the destructive history of structural violence at work. I appreciated how much care went into weaving these difficult stories together to create a national history from below and from within. It is a model of how to geographically scale-up our analysis without losing our grounding in people’s lives. It represents oral history at its humanistic best. * Steven High, Professor of History, Concordia University, Canada *

Author Information

Arthur McIvor is Professor of Social History and Co-Director of the Scottish Oral History Centre at the University of Strathclyde, UK.

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