Sweatshops at Sea: Merchant Seamen in the World's First Globalized Industry, from 1812 to the Present

As the main artery of international commerce, merchant shipping was the world’s first globalized industry, often serving as a vanguard for issues touching on labor recruiting, the employment relationship, and regulatory enforcement that crossed national borders. In Sweatshops at Sea, historian Leon Fink examines the evolution of laws and labor relations governing ordinary seamen over the past two centuries.

The merchant marine offers an ideal setting for examining the changing regulatory reg...