'Work and Politics is an imaginative and suggestive look at contemporary Western European and U.S. industrialism, with occasional historical digressions … Sabel argues that different types of workers approach employment not only with different skills and habits but with different expectations and desires as well. Using a wide range of examples - petrochemical workers in Germany and Britain, auto workers in Turin and Hamtramck - Sabel portrays the social personalities of each major subgroup within the working class, from common laborers to workers with plant-specific skills to craftsmen with generalized problem-solving abilities.' The Nation

'Sabel's main contributions are demonstrations that simple pluralistic and class models of work politics are inadequate, that economic structures are influenced politically, and that relations among working class strata centrally explain collective behavior. Sabel's firm grasp of the French, German, and Italian literature is also impressive.' Contemporary Sociology