In this impressive sequence of essays leading New Zealand historian Erik Olssen builds on his earlier work on labour and social and political history. Drawing on the Caversham data base at the University of Otago, he aims to investigate here the ways in which locality, labour process, politics, culture and society shape each other.

After an exploration of the theoretical issues and a sketch of the industrial-residential suburb of Caversham in Dunedin at the turn of the century, Olssen analyses the labour process in various skilled trades, the gendering of skill and work, the construction and development of a socialist political movement and an egalitarian society.

Topics addressed include masters and journeymen, skilled women workers, carpenters, the skilled men of the metal trades in the Hillside workshops, the construction of a political culture based on class and the shifting meanings of that word.