This book is an important and original account of life in the new lean production workplace - the car industry where it all began. It brings together the two emblematic features of the twentieth century: a working class meant to topple the social order, and a product that largely provided the developmental model of that same order. This book is neither a retrospective assessment nor a prediction for the future: it reveals what has changed and what has remained the same, in a workplace that remains a major part of the makeup of our society.

JEAN-PIERRE DURAND is Professor of Sociology and Chair of the Centre de Recerches Pierre Naville at the University of Paris - Evry. He is the co-author of After Fordism (1997), with Robert Boyer and is a member of the International Steering Committee of GERPISA.

NICOLAS HATZFELD is a labour historian and worked on the Peugeot line for two years (1998-99).