Black Gold: The History of How Coal Made Britain

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Paxman was good at providing details of the Tyne's movement of coal to paint a complete picture, but moving on quickly when there were fewer developments. I was surprised to read that these concerns began very early in the coal industry, even pre-dating the Industrial Revolution, but I suppose that like the international slave trade, it was too profitable for the people in power to let morality triumph over money-making. Factual, engaging and alas sad, insomuch that whilst we now know the cost to the climate of coal usage that the country was built on the work in harsh conditions for many families. And then we come to the most dreadful woman in Britain's political history and her brutal vindictive and duplicitous behaviour is starkly brought into the light.

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) remained influential in mining areas after the pits had closed and it has sometimes made itself into a curator of memory. Written in the captivating style of his bestselling book The English, Paxman ranges widely across Britain to explore stories of engineers and inventors, entrepreneurs and industrialists – but whilst coal inevitably helped the rich become richer, the story told by Black Gold is first and foremost a history of the working miners – the men, women and often children who toiled in appalling conditions down in the mines; the villages that were thrown up around the pit-head. To access your ebook(s) after purchasing, you can download the free Glose app or read instantly on your browser by logging into Glose. This book is a highly readable account of the coal industry and the uses to which coal could be put.Written in the captivating style of his bestselling book The English, Paxman ranges widely across Britain to explore stories of engineers and inventors, entrepreneurs and industrialists, and the aristocrats such as the Marquises of Bute whose wealth ballooned after the discovery of coal seams beneath their blessed acres. I would have liked a slightly more consistent or explicit tone towards the pit managers and workers, although he did treat the politicians fairly and acknowledged who had the power and influence. Although Miller’s Extraction Technologies is a work of literary criticism with a political agenda and Paxman’s Black Gold a work that moves from being a history of technology to one in its latter half chiefly about rise and fall of the miners’ political power, both mention and quote some of the same authors. Mum, look what they’ve done to your coal hole,’ says one character when she sees how the new owners of a former council house have adapted the cellar.

Anyone looking at strikes in Birmingham factories will come across men who had started their working lives underground in South Wales and migrated to escape unemployment between the wars. And that is one of the telling points of the book - so much of this history is simply repeating itself today - as a society we just never learn but perhaps if there were more books like this that were widely read, especially but those of school age, we may start to think differently and see the societal shift that we desperately need. Before gas lighting was available, people either accepted the dark or depended upon candlelight and lanterns. He is also quizmaster on University Challenge, has written and presented television series such as Empire, The Victorians, Great Britain's Great War, and is the author of numerous articles for many publications . A rich seam for acerbic Paxman' Kathryn Hughes, Mail on Sunday 'A reallyA rich seam of history … Coal made Britain top nation, but we don’t talk about it much … Much more than the story of an industry: it is a history of Britain from an unusual angle, vividly told, that throws new light on familiar features of our national landscape … Paxman’s fine narrative powers are at their best in his account of [miner’s strikes] … From its beginnings to its end, the industry that made our country what it is, for good and ill, was a brutal business. The book is a grim read, with its details of horrific mining accidents, the working conditions, disputes, deadly smogs and exploitation. It wasn't an exhaustive history and some aspects were dwelt on for longer than others - naval developments had much more coverage than railways and I was surprised that the traditional birthplace of the industrial revolution in Shropshire didn't get much of a mention. Having previously read Jeremy's books on the British Empire and the First World War and found them very rewarding to read, I was happy to give a chance to what otherwise sounded like a book regarding a niche. In this brilliant social history, Jeremy Paxman tells the story of coal mining in England, Scotland and Wales from Roman times, through the birth of steam power to war, nationalisation, pea-souper smogs, industrial strife and the picket lines of the Miner's Strike.

Despite such a lack of broader knowledge of nineteenth-century history and her salting her pages with jargon, Miller has a great many interesting and informative things to say about the fiction she discusses. This did liven up the book although I did think some of his input was unnecessary, such as speculating whether the mining village of Aberfan had contributed to one of the most famous disasters by allowing the waste heap to stay in an unsafe position.Much of this was inevitable, as railways shifted to diesel, and electricity generation moved to oil, gas and nuclear. I interpret literary form and genre as signals for habits of mind and ways of thinking about the world that have material causes as well as long-term effects” (2-3). Coal and the mining of it may be old-fashioned and something we prefer not to think about, but it mustn't be forgotten.