Steven L. Kaplan is Professor of European History at Cornell University. He published Les ventres de Paris. Pouvoir et approvisionnement dans la France d'Ancien Régime (Fayard, 1988), Le meilleur pain du monde. Les boulangers de Paris au XVIIIe siècle (Fayard, 1996), La fin des corporations (Fayard, 2001) and (as editor, with Philippe Minard) La France, malade du corporatisme(2004).

List of Figures and Tables
Preface

Introduction Chapter 1. 'Learning on the Shop Floor' in Historical Perspective
Bert De Munck and Hugo Soly

PART I: BETWEEN SCHOOL AND HOUSEHOLD

Chapter 2. Apprentices, Servants and Other Workers: Apprenticeship in Japan
Mary Louise Nagata

Chapter 3. From School to Workshop: Pre-training and Apprenticeship in Old Regime France
Clare Crowston

PART II: BETWEEN CONTRACT AND PRACTICE

Chapter 4. Apprenticeship and Guild Control in the Netherlands, c.1450-1800
Karel Davids

Chapter 5. Construction and Reproduction: The Training and Skills of Antwerp Cabinetmakers in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
Bert De Munck

Chapter 6. Learning by Brewing: Apprenticeship and the English Brewing Industry in the Late Victorian and Early Edwardian Period
Jonathan Reinarz

PART III: SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS

Chapter 7. Silk Weaver and Purse Maker Apprentices in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Vienna
Annemarie Steidl

Chapter 8. Social Mobility and Apprenticeship in Late Medieval Flanders
Peter Stabel

Chapter 9. Apprentices in the German and Austrian Crafts in Early Modern Times: Apprentices as Wage Earners?
Reinhold Reith

Conclusion Chapter 10. Reconsidering Apprenticeship: Afterthoughts
Steven L. Kaplan

Notes on Contributors
Index

Apprenticeship or vocational training is a subject of lively debate. Economic historians tend to see apprenticeship as a purely economic phenomenon, as an 'incomplete contract' in need of legal and institutional enforcement mechanisms. The contributors to this volume have adopted a broader perspective. They regard learning on the shop floor as a complex social and cultural process, to be situated in an ever-changing historical context. The results are surprising. The authors convincingly show that research on apprenticeship and learning on the shop floor is intimately associated with migration patterns, family economy and household strategies, gender perspectives, urban identities and general educational and pedagogical contexts.