The sub-title of this sprawling but ultimately rewarding book – “essays toward a global labor history” – might well have italicized the word toward. In fact, there is not much “history” here, at least in the conventional forms of exposition of research or even synthetic narrative. Rather, the distinguished author, who has long served as director of the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam, relies on a wealth of selective examples to lay out a rich set of frameworks for the undertaking of transnational, comparative, and/or global labor analyses – that means plans for future historical inquiries. Indeed, if Marcel van der Linden were Immanuel Kant, he might have called the book “Prolegomena to any Future Global Labor History.” (tho’ I note that this reviewer is credited in the acknowledgments with coming up with the book’s actual title!)