Idle Hands: The Experience of Unemployment, 1790-1990

by John Burnett

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.

380 pages, Paperback

First published June 30, 1994