Idle Hands

`... he has produced a vivid, moving and highly readable account of victimisation and suffering, reslilence and generosity, hope and despair.' - News Statesman & Society`John Burnett will always be known as the pioneer of the history of working people in their own words. He has opened up an Aladdins's cave of historical treasures and transformed working class history from a dry account of wages, prices and institutions into a real human world of warm-blooded people... a splendid book ... ' - Social History Society Newsletter`He has produced a vivid, moving and highly readable account of victimisation and suffering, resilience and generosity, hope and despair.' - New Statesman and Society`The strength of this book lies in the sense it gives of the economic and social continuities that mark the history of unemployment.' - David Selbourne The Times Higher

• 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