Arthur McIvor is well known to historians as professor of social history and director of the Scottish Oral History Centre at the University of Strathclyde, United Kingdom. In his study of working lives since 1945, he exhaustively surveys the terrain and identifies the major trends: the more than doubling of real incomes over this period; the decline of manual work and the rise of the “high tech” white-collar service industries; the rise of unemployment since the 1970s; the rise and decline of trade union power; the decline of men working over fifty; gender convergence in the formal labor economy; and the use of migrant labor for low-paid and unskilled work. In doing this, McIvor synthesizes a massive amount of data both sociological and historical. He unpicks notions such as the “hour glass economy thesis,” which depicts the rise of “lousy” jobs and “lovely” jobs (14). McIvor takes issue with Harry Braverman's structuralist account of deskilling as the “degradation of work thesis,” which he sees as far from proven (72). McIvor is also critical of romantic views of a lost world of craftsmanship for harking back to a past that at best only ever applied to a small minority of workers.

McIvor successfully blends quantitative and qualitative data. It is shocking to learn that between 1979 and 1989 the Thatcher government made no less than thirty adjustments to the way in which unemployment was measured, making the 1980s a time of massive hidden unemployment as well as substantial official unemployment. He shows that the commitment to work has been eroded faster in Britain than in the rest of Europe. Even so, McIvor does not see the “end of work” thesis as convincing (278). There are numerous extended extracts from oral history interviews fleshing out the large volume of statistics in this study. Such testimony is essential for gaining a feel for workers' experiences and work cultures. This extract, for example, from the Scottish Oral History Centre collection, illustrates how brutal life could be for working-class men: “My tradesman and rigger were having a heated argument and I unfortunately interrupted them to my regret. The rigger unceremoniously gave me a good punch on the jaw that sent me tumbling down a flight of steel stairs and told me to shut my mouth until I was asked to open it” (88).

Despite the erosion of job security and the recent rise of unsatisfactory practices such as “zero hours contracts,” it is also undeniable that for most people work is still an enriching experience. There are numerous accounts conveying the feelings of dignity, esteem, identity, and independence that arise from involvement in paid work for both men and women. McIvor is particularly good at conveying the sense of loss felt by those deprived of work: “Your self confidence goes lower and lower. You start to think that even applying is a waste of time. You are sure you wont get it. Then you get diffident and start to avoid people” (262–3). In building in these workers' narratives into the heart of the book, McIvor makes a convincing case for the increased use of oral history for research into the recent history of the world of work.

This very comprehensive and inclusive study deals not only with gender issues and ethnic minorities but also with occupational health, safety, loss, and disability. This is a new kind of approach to the history of work with the focus on human emotions that is very much to be welcomed. The excellent chapter on “Bodies” is by far the largest chapter, detailing, for instance, with the appalling record of the building industry on the use of asbestos, a material known to be dangerous from the early twentieth century. What is surprising is that there were sections inside the labor movement who fought for the continued use of asbestos, which served to delay its eradication from the building trade, costing many lives. Also interesting is the way that McIvor links male workers' refusal to wear safety gear with a distinct high-earning, breadwinning masculine identity that created men who were willing to take risks to maximize their income.

McIvor makes it clear that despite its rhetoric of equality, until fairly recently the British trade union movement condoned both racism and sexism. Since the Thatcher years, the labor movement has changed beyond recognition. It is nowadays a much diminished force, with only 26 percent of workers in unions. Nevertheless, there are union strongholds in the public sector where low-paid women dominate the labor movement, as reflected in appointment of its first woman Trades Union Congress general secretary in 2012, Frances O'Grady. Women have been held back at work by the traditional view of women's role as essentially domestic, giving them a sense of inferiority and guilt as workers and legitimizing low pay in favor of breadwinning men. Much progress has been made to overcome this, but the author makes it clear that there is still a way to go, and unless equality is achieved in the home, women will always be disadvantaged at work.

Above all, the McIvor makes a powerful case for agency. Despite the reduced power of the labor movement and the dehumanizing aspects of much modern-day work, he sees in workers the continuing power to resist, contest, and renegotiate the conditions of their employment. This makes reading Working Lives an essentially uplifting and immensely rewarding experience.