Say the word "work," and most people think of some form of gainful employment, yet this limited definition has never corresponded to the historical experience of most people—whether in colonies, developing countries, or empires. Looking at labor history around the globe from the 13th to the 21st centuries, Andrea Komlosy sheds light on the coexistence of multiple forms of labor—paid and unpaid, free and forced. From the economic structures and ideological mystifications surrounding work in the Middle Ages, all the way to European colonialism and the industrial revolution, Komlosy adopts a distinctly global and feminist approach, revealing the hidden forms of hyper-exploited labor which often go ignored, yet are key to the functioning of the capitalist world-system.