Idle Hands

Idle Hands is the first major social history of unemployment in Britain covering the last 200 years. It focuses on the experiences of working people in becoming unemployed, coping with unemployment and searching for work, and their reactions and responses to their problems. Direct evidence of the impact of unemployment drawn from extensive personal biographies complements economic and statistical analysis.

Professor John Burnett

Introduction; 1: Unemployment in the Countryside, 1790-1834; 2: A Dying Trade: The Case of the Handloom Weavers, 1790-1850; 3: Unemployment Among Skilled Workers, 1815-70; 4: Unemployment on the Land, 1834-1914; 5: The Discovery' of Unemployment, 1870-1914; 6: 'The Worst of Times?' Unemployment Between the Wars; 1: Back to Unemployment, 1970-90; 8: Conclusion