"This fine volume brings together essays by one of the leading modern German historians, essays that give the reader an impressive overview of his work from three decades and introduce new generations of students to central questions of modern German social history." · Central European History
"... a tour de force of societal history, reminding one both of how many insights Kocka has generated through application of Weberian analytical tools." · H-Net Reviews (H-W-Civ)
"... a good introduction ... the assorted essays ... successfully present Kocka's methodological emphases and his wide-ranging contributions to modern German social history." · Enterprise & Society
"... a seminal, critically important, uniquely informative contribution to the study of German history, business, entrepreneurship, and the working class." · The Midwest Book Review
Jürgen Kocka is one of the foremost historians of Germany whose work has been devoted to the integration of different genres of the social and economic history of Europe during the period of industrialization. This collection of essays gives a representative sample of his effort to develop, by reference to Marx and Weber, new and powerful analytical tools for understanding the dynamics of modern industrial societies.