How can one make labour history interesting again?

First, this paper sketches the development of labour history as a historical subdiscipline up to the 1970s and 1980s when it became a booming field, an area of great excitement and high productivity. Why this should have been the case is an interesting question to ask in hindsight. Secondly, I discuss certain trends in the last 10 15 years that are related to a decline in this field, not in terms of sophistication, but certainly with regard to the field s popularity among historians, students and the public. Dealing with this rather dramatic change might tell us something about the way my discipline modern history with a stress on social history works, where it gets its vitality from, its conjunctures and fashions. Thirdly, I present some personal ideas about how one could, and perhaps should, deal with the present situation, its problems and its opportunities. I am presently working on the third volume of a history of labour in 19th century Germany a project to which I have returned after many years. Some of the general problems I have encountered in this project will also be dealt with, indirectly, in this paper.