Considers the 'labouring poor' as actively pursuing a whole range of strategies for survival.

Household strategies for survival: an introduction Laurence Fontaine and Jürgen Schlumbohm; Negotiating a living: Essex pauper letters from London, 1800¿1834 Thomas Sokoll; 'It is extreme necessity that makes me do this': some 'survival strategies' of pauper households in London's West End during the early eighteenth century Jeremy Boulton; Using microcredit and restructuring households: two complementary survival strategies in late eighteenth-century Basrcelona Montserrat Carbonell; Poor Jewish families in early modern rural Swabia Sabine Ullmann; Industrious households: survival strategies of artisans in a Southwest German town during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries Dennis A. Frey Jr.; Individualization strategies among city dwellers in contemporary Africa: balancing the shortcomings of community solidarity and the individualism of the struggle for survival Alain Marie; Finding the right balance: financial self-help organizations as sources of security and insecurity in urban Indonesia Hotze Lont; Stepping on two boats: urban strategies of Chinese peasants and their children Danyu Wang.