The Story of Work: A New History of Humankind

The first truly global history of work, an upbeat assessment from the age of the hunter-gatherer to the present day “Beginning in the hunting-and-gathering past, this long view of work shows how little has changed over millennia.Progressing through the rise of cities, wages and markets for labour, it traces a perennial cycle of injustice and resistance-and the age-old desire for more.”-The Economist, “Best Books of 2021” “Absolutely fascinating. . . . Lucassen’s own compassion shines through this magisterial book.”-Christina Patterson, The Guardian We work because we have to, but also because we like it: from hunting-gathering more than 700,000 years ago to the present era of zoom meetings, humans have always worked to make the world around them serve their needs. Jan Lucassen provides an inclusive history of humanity’s busy labor throughout the ages.Spanning China, India, Africa, the Americas, and Europe, Lucassen looks at the ways in which humanity organizes work: in the household, t