The argument is that language is a broad-based means of communication with contested and consensual meanings, and that such meanings should be revealed and evaluated by historical contextualization. The book aims to show the connection between the linguistic and the social should be re-examined. 'This book is an interesting addition to a growing volume of literature which provides a salutary rebuttal of postmodernist academic imperialism.' Labour History Review, Vol. 64, No. 1 '...this collection demonstrates that labour history should not be seen as trapped in a time warp of 'old fashioned' concerns...the authors...build on a long-standing interest in language and identity, pioneered by historians such as E. P. Thompson, and to develop this further by re-thinking the complex relationship between discourse, culture, political identities and socio-economic structures...Urban economic and social historians, as well as labour historians, should find plenty to interest them in this book....' Urban History, Vol. 26, No. 2