Introduction

Labour history is a small discipline facing big challenges. Classical labour history consisted of the application of the approaches, methods, formats and styles of the traditional historiography of ideas and politics to the field of labour history. This introductory chapter presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book. The book highlights the wave of foundations of communist parties in the years from 1918 to 1923. It focuses on the interactions between trade unions and the so-called ‘new’ social movements in Western Europe, within individual countries as well as among different countries. The book sketches a number of major aspects of the development of trade-union internationalism. It considers to what extent the concept of a ‘normal employment relationship’ is Eurocentric and thus in need of rethinking. The book contains some reflections about workers’ protest in capitalist societies. Classical liberal and socialist interpretations see the working class as emancipating itself by either integrating itself into capitalism or overcoming capitalism.