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The Shadow of the Mine:Coal and the End of Industrial Britain
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The Miners' Strike - 40 Years On
The Shadow of the Mine tells the story of King Coal in its heyday, the heroics and betrayals of the Miners’ Strike, and what happened to mining communities after the last pits closed.
No one personified the age of industry more than the miners. Coal was central to the British economy, powering its factories and railways. It carried political weight, too. In the eighties the miners risked everything in a year-long strike against Thatcher’s shutdowns. Their defeat doomed a way of life. The lingering sense of abandonment in former mining communities would be difficult to overstate. Yet recent electoral politics has revolved around the coalfield constituencies in Labour’s Red Wall. Huw Beynon and Ray Hudson draw on decades of research to chronicle these momentous changes through the words of the people who lived through them.
This edition includes a new postscript on why Thatcher’s war on the miners wasn’t good for green politics.
‘Excellent’
NEW STATESMAN
‘Brilliant’
TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
‘Enlightening’
GUARDIAN
Reviews
This brilliant analysis of the decline of British coal mining, and its social and political effects, is required reading for those who would speak for this working class.
The Shadow of the Mine reminds us why this spirit [of solidarity and collectivism] has lived on in the coalfields, in spite of people feeling a sense of political betrayal going back decades ... enlightening.
Refreshing and necessary ... [The Shadow of the Mine] explains in loving, careful detail why working people’s relationship with Labour in former industrial communities ... had become complex and ultimately soured.
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Beynon and Hudson ... write with authority and respect of the former mining communities of Britain.
, Financial Times -
A hymn to working-class community and to men and women’s souls.
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Huw Beynon and Ray Hudson are premier coalfield social scientists, and their new book is essential reading for anyone who wants to dig deeper beyond vague generalisations about the “Red Wall”.
, Tribune -
It’s the precise, empathetic detailing of life after coal that makes this book so telling – the low-paid jobs, the boring shifts, the ritual humiliations doled out to ex-miners who were once considered to be doing work of physical heroism and national importance. In that shift lies a deep truth about the death of a kind of labourism and it is skilfully told here.
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A brave book ... anyone interested in the transformation that has reshaped Britain’s former coalfields should read The Shadow of the Mine.
, Jacobin -
Drawing on decades of research ... [The Shadow of the Mine] is a moving account of 150 years of coalfield history ... By tracing the "deep story" of the marginalisation of Britain’s coalfields, it aims to understand the continuing exclusion of working-class people in deindustrialised areas from political and social life.
, Antipode -
A highly visceral approach to the business of cutting coal . . . excellent
, New Statesman -
After defeat by Thatcher, the pits were levelled and the Miners' Welfare Halls, their social and intellectual centres, vanished. With carefully controlled passion, this book indicts such ruthless disregard for the values of care and association.
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Considered, comprehensive and insightful ... a book that deserves the widest distribution
, Morning Star -
The work of two outstanding 'organic intellectuals' of the very communities they are giving voice to ... Anyone who wants to go beyond the 'Red Wall' platitudes of British politics ought to start with The Shadow of the Mine.
Spokesman -
A major contribution . . . required reading for historians of twentieth-century history.
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A powerful study of tumultuous political events steeped in knowledge of the coalfields. Essential reading for all those who care about the future – and hence the past – of working-class politics.
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The Shadow of the Mine is a story of communities being betrayed, not simply by having their livelihoods taken away, but their whole reason for being nullified
, Western Mail -
Superb and timely ... full of lessons and insights for today
, New Socialist -
A concern for the dignity of those who made (and continue to make) their lives in the coalfields runs through the book like an unbroken seam.
, AAG Review of Books -
Starmer and his allies in Renaissance would do better to pick up a copy of The Shadow of the Mine ... As Beynon and Hudson make clear, the succession of defeats inflicted on the trade unions over the last four decades has brought about the gradual fragmentation of old loyalties.
, Tribune -
A solid account of the history of the coalfields in Durham and South Wales and the impact of deindustrialisation and closure upon them.
, Labour Hub -
Elegiac ... [The Shadow of the Mine] provides essential economic and social context for both the Leave vote in 2016 and the consequent collapse of the so-called 'Red Wall'.
, Tribune