Using case studies from Germany, Britain, the United States and Japan, this text traces cross-national differences in contemporary training regimes back to the political settlement achieved among employers in skill-intensive industries, artisans and early trade unions in the 19th century

During the twentieth century, German government and industry created a highly skilled workforce as part of an ambitious program to control and develop the country's human resources. Yet, these long-standing efforts to match as many workers as possible to skilled vocations and to establish a...