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AbstractJohn D. French's stimulating article, which explores the scope for comparing working-class leaders across time and space, is considered in this contribution by reference to my biography of August Bebel and with a particular focus on the following topics: a) historical actors as shaped by their own particular time and place; b) the importance of personal relationships and networks in making people who they are; c) the importance of psychological elements and the risk in interpreting them in retrospect – recovering them depends upon the sources available; d) how charisma reflects an interdependence between attribution and individual qualities; e) the importance of political milieux for the flourishing of individual working-class leaders; and f) the relationship between political work to both civil society and existing class relations. Using these approaches allows us to write cross-border and cross-temporal "embodied social biographies", as suggested by French.

It is a key idea that the German Labour Movement originated in the early nineteenth century abroad. In the more liberal atmosphere of Paris, Brussels, Geneva and London political refugees and travelling journeymen came together and founded associations. This turn of events should, however, not be seen solely within the analytical framework of class formation but also as part of the civil societal development of a transnational movement that fought for the acceptance of the workers as 'real citizens'. This paper seeks to place the topic of the (political) formation of the German working class in dialogue with the structure of political remittances and thereby to enquire into the influence of foreign ideas and associational models on the early German working class: which actors, media and ideas helped spread these new forms of associations; how were these shaped by the interplay between national impacts and transnational developments? ; Peer Reviewed

ABSTRACTHow can a modern concept like Amartya Sen's capability approach be introduced in historical studies? One possibility is to ask how public services were implemented in municipal policy and how these services open up capabilities for the individuals of a city. This article uses Sen's theoretical framework as an analytical tool to explore two Prussian towns, Erfurt and Frankfurt am Main, and their public services (job centres and tramway systems) as examples of social policy at the local level.