Review by Choice Review
Although undergraduates will find it difficult, Steinfeld's study describing how and when workers in England and America achieved legal autonomy is must reading for anyone seriously interested in labor history. Students of indentured servitude will consider it especially rewarding. A short review cannot do justice to Steinfeld's subtle and compelling treatment of labor laws and practices. Among other things, he rejects traditional assumptions that indentured servitude represented a limited deviation from free labor practices, or that free labor was the standard form of wage-labor relations. He argues that in the 17th century, neither American nor English law "unambiguously recognize[d] any form of free labor in the modern sense of the term." Even in forms of consensual labor, workers faced legal sanctions should they not fulfill their contracts. The great value of Steinfeld's work is his ability to demonstrate changes in employer-employee relationships over time in two countries, and to identify the many forces and events that clarify how modern assumptions evolved regarding various types of free and unfree labor.-G. S. Rowe, University of Northern Colorado
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
