Overview

The essays in this volume take the readers into the complex world of work in early modern Europe. Carlo Poni explores this theme from multiple perspectives, examining work practices in agriculture, artisan production and the silk industry. Extensive archival material, analyzed with theories derived from Economics, illuminates the social relations and conflicts that arose from different work practices in agriculture, artisan production and the silk industry. The author presents the ideas of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century theorists: Galileo Galilei's theory of mechanics as a way to understand how machines work; the Venetian engineer Vittorio Zonca on mechanics; the natural philosopher John Theophilus Desaguliers on bodily movements; and, with an incisive critique, Denis Diderot on workers and their practices in the Encyclopédie. Contributors are: Carlo Ginzburg, Alberto Guenzi, Steven L. Kaplan, Edmund Leites and Roberto Scazzieri.

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Carlo Poni (1927-2018) was an Economic historian whose writings span from agricultural and industrial history to the relationship between theory and practice in production activities. A leading scholar in the field of micro-history, he was Professor of Economic History at the University of Bologna and Life Member of Clare Hall, Cambridge. Vivian R. Gruder, Ph.D. (1963), Harvard University, is Professor of History, Emerita, Queens College, City University of New York. A political and social historian of eighteenth-century France, she wrote on the royal administrative system and later on mounting political opposition demanding public representation in the absolute monarchy (1787–1788). Patrick Leech, D.Phil. (1995), University of Sussex, is Full Professor of English Language and Culture at the University of Bologna. He is the author of a number of scholarly works on translation history and cultural heritage including Cosmopolitanism, Dissent and Translation (Bologna, Bologna University Press, 2000). Roberto Scazzieri, D.Phil. (1987), University of Oxford, is Alma Mater Professor of economic analysis at Bologna and National Fellow of the National Lincei Academy, Rome. He is Senior Member of Gonville and Caius College and Life Member of Clare Hall, Cambridge. His work covers the theory of production, complexity and interdependence, and structural economic dynamics.

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