Making the Palace Machine Work: Mobilizing People, Objects, and Nature in the Qing Empire brings the studies of institutions, labour, and material cultures to bear on the history of science and technology by tracing the workings of the Imperial Household Department (Neiwufu) in the Qing court and empire. An enormous apparatus that employed 22,000 men and women at its heyday, the Department operated a "machine" with myriad moving parts. The first part of the book portrays the people who kept it running, from technical experts to menial servants, and scrutinises the paper trails they left behind. Part II uncovers the working principles of the machine by following the production chains of some of its most splendid products: gilded statues, jade, porcelain, and textiles. Part III examines the complex task of managing living organisms and natural environments, including lotus plants grown in imperial ponds in Beijing, fresh medicines sourced from disparate regions, and tribute elephants from Southeast Asia.

This book, full of quantitative evidence and limited-circulation archives, details manufacturing and the beginnings of industrialisation in China from 1644 to 1911. It thoroughly examines the interior organisation of public craft production and the complementary activities of the private sector. It offers detailed knowledge of shipbuilding and printing. Moreover, it contributes to the research of labour history and the rise of capitalism in China through its examination of living conditions, working conditions, and wages.

From 1500 to 1650 many societies underwent profound social and economic change. As market economies developed and regions became interconnected, labour relations were transformed alongside ideas about work. Until now, these perceptions of work have rarely been studies from a global perspective, even though their analysis would help us to understand the nature and consequences of shifts in global labour relations. This volume focuses on perceptions of work world-wide and explores how ideas about working (and not working) evolved over time in the early modern period. Contributions analyse central texts containing perceptions of work, terms and concepts that express 'work', the ranking of occupations, and ideas about 'just' wages and forms of remuneration. They show, too, how gender, age, and ethnic or religious background determined who could do what work and how these ideas were transformed in particular societies and communities, either independently or in response to a transcontinental market.

Women's emancipation was a central but contested pillar of socialist and communist internationalism during the twentieth century. The collapse of state socialism has led to renewed interest in the history and legacies of women's movements across the former socialist world during the era of decolonisation, and their significance for global feminisms in the present day. Responding to these debates, this collection of essays explores the history of transnational socialist feminisms during the global Cold War from the perspective of mid-ranking activists, officials and functionaries in international communist and left-revolutionary movements in Eastern Europe and the postcolonial world. Drawing on new sources, including private correspondence, interviews, memoirs and institutional archives, the essays ask how these activists defined women's rights from the era of the Popular Fronts in the 1930s until the United Nations Decade of Women (1976-1985).