Speaking globally

The recent growth of the working classes in various parts of the Global South (or what was called the Tricontinent of Africa, Asia, and Latin America some years ago) has important consequences for labor historians. For a very long time labor history was mainly based in the North Atlantic region, though there have also been important nuclei in the so-called socialist countries, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, and some institutional labor history could also be found in other parts of the world at least since the 1920s. Now, however, the Global South is playing an increasingly important role in the development of working class historiography.