Early Trade Unionism: Fraternity, Skill and the Politics of Labour.

Early Trade Unionism: Fraternity, Skill and the Politics of Labour, by Malcolm Chase; pp. v + 286. Aldershot and Brookfield, VT: Ashgate, 2000, [pounds sterling]45.00, $79.95.

Contrary to recent pronouncements of its demise, labour history has re-established itself. Revitalised through positive but critical engagement with the linguistic turn and other historiographical fashions, it now lays claim to space between social and cultural history. Imbued with regained confidence, this latest addition to the Studies in Labour History series promoted by the British Society for the Study of Labour History, revisits the once hallowed foundation of both labour history and the labour movement, early trade unionism. In a stridently revisionist manner, Malcolm Chase dismisses the narrow institutional perspectives, teleological narratives, and reductionist rigidities of the old …