Business history and the history of work – a contested relationship
In historical discourse business history and the history of work are most often treated as two separate fields of enquiry, with different agendas, theoretical fundaments and sometimes also methodologies. This paper argues that this is a misnomer. Although division of labour in the social sciences is only a natural consequence of the growth of knowledge, there are many reasons why business history and history of work should cooperate more in the future. As a consequence, new insights could be found and novel ways to understand both the organisation of work and of business could be explored. The aim of this paper is to present some stylised examples connected with the three industrial revolutions occurring since the middle of the eighteenth century in order to argue for such joint ventures.