The booming coal industry of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was paramount in the rise of modern south Wales, and the miners played a key role in shaping the region’s economics, politics, and society. This book explores the history of Welsh mining between 1964 and 1985, covering the challenges the miners faced, including the concerted effort to diminish the coal industry under the Wilson government, the growth of miners’ resistance, and the eventual defeat of the epic strike of 1984–5. The first full-length academic study of the miners and their union in the later twentieth century, The South Wales Miners will appeal to anyone interested in this significant group of workers within the British labor force.
Reviews
Table of Contents
Series Editors’ Foreword
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
List of Illustrations
List of Maps
Note on Capitalisation
Introduction: ‘an historical mission to lead in class struggles’
I. The Politics of the South Wales Miners
II. Closures: 1964–1970
III. Struggle: 1970–1974
IV. Interlude: 1974–1979
V. Confrontation: 1979–1983
VI. The Strike: 1984–1985
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index