Professional Men, Professional Women
The European Professions from the 19th Century until Today
- Maria Malatesta - University of Bologna, Italy
Uniting the legal, medical, engineering and accounting professions it provides a comparative historical and sociological exploration of 'Professional Europe'.
The book:
• comprehensively investigates the roots and origins of the four professions
• reconstructs the processes and changes which have characterised them
• charts their response to external agents such as the state, diverse social movements, economic crises and wars.
Inspired by Bourdieu it rejects theories of professionalization drawing instead upon the sociology of crisis and theories on the decline of the professions to introduce the intellectual professions' relationship with the fascist and authoritarian regimes.
Detailed, well defined and critical in its application Professional Men, Professional Women also examines the role of women within the professions and includes a devoted chapter conducting a twofold comparison between countries and professions.
Maria Malatesta’s sweeping examination of the major free professions in Europe from the end of the Ancient Regime to the beginning of the current millennium represents one of the crowning achievements of the “New Social History.” Her book is truly imposing in its scope and in its command of the vast social science and historical scholarship on the subject. She traces the evolution of the legal, medical, engineering, and accounting professions over two centuries from gentlemanly vocations to their contemporary market-driven forms in Germany, France, Italy, and Great Britain. Her book should be an essential reference work for all those interested in the history of professions
Anthony L. Cardoza
Professor of Modern European History, Loyola University of Chicago
