The mainstream historiographies of industrialisation habitually emphasise the novel energy sources and materials that powered this transformative era, such as coal, steel, steam and electricity, implicitly assuming that wood, an important pre-industrial resource, was destined for an inevitable decline. Histories of industrialisation also disproportionately focus on Europe and North America.
Between Global Standards and Unequal Treatment
The International Labour Organization and Racialised Labour, 1920s–1950s
- Fabiana Kutsche
Futures in the History of Deindustrialisation
Edited by Eloisa Betti, Liliosa Azara, Stefan Moitra, Francesca Sanna, Christian Wicke
Dates: 22-23 October 2026
Location: Somerville College, Oxford (Margaret Thatcher Centre)
Convenors: Damiano Bardelli (Voltaire Foundation, Oxford) and Matilde Cazzola (DiSCi, Bologna and mpilhlt), with Joanna Innes (Faculty of History Oxford)
THURSDAY, 22 October
13:30 Welcome and Introduction
14:00 Session 1 – Rural Poverty
Joanna Innes (University of Oxford): The Invention of Rural Poverty in England, from 1760
How important has socialism been to adult education? For most of history, adult education – structured learning, involving organised study and usually teaching – was restricted largely to social and religious elites. During the nineteenth century, however, as the industrial revolution tore apart the bonds of ‘traditional’ economies and societies, propelled migrants to towns and foreign lands, and demanded mastery of new skills, new popular democratic movements arose – most profoundly, the socialist movement.
