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This book elicits and identifies the permanent characteristics of arisans by analyzing their variegated careers. At the same time it upholds the stratum's embeddedness in concrete social contexts and sets of relations. The book is unique in that it moves beyond ad hoc discussions of artisans by providing a theoretical understanding of the artisans stratum as a distinct social structure. For this purpose an explicitly comparative perspective is adopted in scrutinizing approaches to the study of the artisans and a set of empirical cases. Among the perspectives surveyed, the ways Marxists have confronted artisans are explored, while more contemporary sociological approaches to their study are also taken up. Empirical cases range from instances of artisans before the advent of modernity, at the time of capitalism's establishment and in the contemporary period, both in the centre (Third Italy) and semi-periphery (Greece). The author completes the discussion by bringing in factors such as artisans' basic structure, the context and timing of their emergence, agency and the conjuncture into a discussion of the stratum's survival and resurgence in late modernity.