Description
Book SynopsisThe British coal industry no longer exists and yet the figure of the coal miner lives on in the British cultural imagination. In feature films and documentaries, miners are typically portrayed as proletarian traditionalists working in a dying industry. Taking this perspective, the 1984/85 miners'' strike seems a desperate last stand against forces much bigger than the miners themselves -- not just the Thatcher government but the tide of historical change itself.In this ground-breaking study, Jörg Arnold challenges a declinist reading of the people working in one of Britain''s most important energy industries. The study makes extensive use of previously inaccessible records to offer a new account of the British miner in the age of de-industrialisation. The book situates the miners in broader structures of feeling, and reconstructs the miners'' sense of the past and the future. Arnold argues that Britain''s miners went through a cyclical movement -- from loser to winner and back again --
Table of ContentsIntroduction: From Loser to Winner and Back Again Part I: From Loser to Winner 1: 1967 2: 1972 3: 1977 4: 1981 Part II: And back again 5: 1984 6: 1987 7: 1992 8: 1997 Conclusion: The British Miner in History Appendix: Statistical Tables
