In the early 21st century, radically changing work locations and patterns have jolted society to reflect more on the ways that employment affects the body and the mind. This book provides historical context and insights to aid our understanding of this contemporary crisis, critically examining the history of a neglected area.

In this oral-history based study, Arthur McIvor explores the history of health and safety from Second World War to the present, drawing extensively upon workers' own personal stories of occupational accidents, disasters, injury, disease, overwork and disability. It covers a wide range of workplace issues, from stories of TNT poisoning and overwork in wartime, through to the asbestos and black lung disasters, and the modern-day ‘epidemics’ of stress, burn-out and Covid-19.

Opening conversations surrounding the harms caused by work, this book analyses how people have lived with occupational illness and disability, critiquing risk and work-health cultures, and the structural violence characteristic of industrial capitalism and neoliberal economics, in addition to discussing the agency of big business and advocacy of workers and victims. Focusing on class, gender, disability and race, this book uses an impressive range of secondary and primary sources, including government reports and enquiries drawing upon workers’ testimonies, Mine and Factory Inspectors Reports, HSE papers, newspapers, Mass Observation responses and oral history interviews.

Jobs and Bodies is a powerful, dynamic, but sensitive account of working lives and health which deserves careful consideration as a sophisticated and valuable contribution to the history of industry, labor, death, and injury, and of twentieth-century British working culture more widely. * Journal of British Studies *
The opening section of the book takes an autobiographical turn mapping the working life stories of the author's family in employment on the docks and various factories. This makes for a much more insightful and rich study than some academic texts and as such will be of value to both researchers and general readers … Timely. * Scottish Labour History *

This is deeply moving and important account of how work is embodied; how the jobs British
people have done damaged them physically and mentally. McIvor is the leading scholar of
occupational illness and industry. His humanity and care for the subject is apparent on
every page.

Arthur McIvor is Professor of Social History and Co-Director of the Scottish Oral History Centre at the University of Strathclyde, UK.