A History of the European Working Class (series)
The working class has played an essential part of European countries’ history – through revolutions, wars and social progress. In four episodes of a spectacular tale, this show reminds us of what our societies owe to the workers’ movements and its struggles.
The story begins in the 18th century, but their fight carries on today. Much of our current democracies’ institutions and values flow from older working class demands: universal suffrage or social solidarity are some of its most telling examples. Our culture – the way we dress, the songs we listen to, the movies we watch and the mass-media themselves – heavily relies on the workers’ erstwhile popular culture. Finally, all across Asia, Africa and Latin America, millions of women and men experience lives similar to the 18th and 19th centuries’ European working class. We will bring out the present’s ever looming shadow by constantly flowing back and forth between history and current situations. Those contemporary testimonies and photographs will help us gather the threads of memory between yesterday and today.
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A History of the European Working Class - Episode 1
Directed by Stan Neumann • Documentary • 2020 • 52 minutes
Starting in the 18th century, transformations in commerce led to the emergence of the early factory system and the birth of the British working class. Displaced from the countryside, these new workers flooded into textile mills that woul...
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A History of the European Working Class - Episode 2
Directed by Stan Neumann • Documentary • 2020 • 52 minutes
This episode of A HISTORY OF THE EUROPEAN WORKING CLASS traces the evolution of the working class from their early development in Great Britain to their increasingly central role in the politics of 19th century Europe. The expansion of t...
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A History of the European Working Class - Episode 3
Directed by Stan Neumann • Documentary • 2020 • 52 minutes
By the late 19th century, pressure from the new mass parties of the organized working class and ‘scientific’ managers led employers to rethink their treatment of workers. Taylorism gained ground as a means of streamlining production in t...
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A History of the European Working Class - Episode 4
Directed by Stan Neumann • Documentary • 2020 • 52 minutes
The organized working class of the early 20th century was both at a high point of political power and poised for tragic defeat. The rise of Franco, Mussolini and Hitler turned legions of European workers into disempowered pawns in the pu...
