Immigrant workers are as crucial to the world and national economies as they are socially and politically controversial. This provocative book explores the rise of the global working class in the 19th & 20th centuries by examining the experiences of a wide range of immigrant workers in the US, Europe, Asia and Africa. Are immigrant workers more conservative or radical than native-born workers? Under what circumstances do workers act together and when do they fail to co-operate? These are just two of the questions addressed in this important collection of essays.