The Development of Local Public Services, 1650-1860: Lessons from Middletown, Connecticut

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. The MIT Press and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the editors of The Journal ofInterdisciplinary History are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Interdisciplinary History. REVIEWS 537In an afterword to the volume, Levin epitomized the merits of the book and also the dilemma of its authors: "If we accept that social realities can be . . . very fluid, then the concept of class becomes real and useful, but our work becomes more intricate. . . . Now we must rediscover class and class consciousness empirically (and conceptually)" (378). Historians of labor who owe more to Michel Foucault than to Karl Marx and more to production manuals than to Capital can indeed produce work that is "intricate" and persuasive. They also produce a deafening cacophony of concepts. Press, I995) 203 pp. $59-95 REVIEWS 537