Jobs and Bodies

An Oral History of Health and Safety in Britain

Arthur McIvor author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Published:30th Nov '23

Should be back in stock very soon

Jobs and Bodies cover

This timely work focuses on the history of public health and safety from World War I to the present. Written by one of the world's foremost experts on the history of workers' occupational health, this book covers the core themes related to experiences of work, disability and health and safety, contextualizing them within the current historical debates.

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.

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 *

ISBN: 9781350236219

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

304 pages