Work and Society: An Introduction to Industrial Society

This brief text provides students with the essentials of industrial sociology, emphasizing the issues, theories, and data needed to understand work and workplaces in today's global economy. The opening chapter discusses hunting-gathering, early agricultural societies, and the manorial, guild, and putting-out systems of production that preceded the factory. Chapter 2 covers the Industrial Revolution in England and industrialization in the United States. The remaining chapters detail how working Americans fared from the 1940s to the mid-1990s. Chapter 3 deals with key work outcomes--income, prestige, and job satisfaction--and occupational distributions and poverty. Chapter 4 turns to occupational mobility, labor unions, and labor law in the United States. Chapter 5 explains how America's economy emerged from Cold War rebuilding and trade strategies--and looks at command economies in Russia and China and the organization of enterprise in Europe and Japan. It also addresses the stagnant and declining incomes of American workers. Throughout the text, tables clearly present the data that inform the discussion.