Download or read book Black Gold The History of How Coal Made Britain written by Jeremy Paxman and published by HarperCollins UK. This book was released on 2021-09-30 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bestselling historian and acclaimed broadcaster ‘A rich social history ... Paxman’s book could hardly be more colourful, and I enjoyed each page enormously’ DOMINIC SANDBROOK, SUNDAY TIMES ‘Vividly told ... Paxman’s fine narrative powers are at their best’ THE TIMES

Download or read book Black Gold the History of How Coal Made Britain written by Jeremy Paxman and published by William Collins. This book was released on 2022-06-09 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bestselling historian and acclaimed broadcaster 'A rich social history ... Paxman's book could hardly be more colourful, and I enjoyed each page enormously' DOMINIC SANDBROOK, SUNDAY TIMES 'Vividly told ... Paxman's fine narrative powers are at their best' THE TIMES Coal is the commodity that made Britain. Dirty and polluting though it is, this black rock has acted as a midwife to genius. It drove industry, religion, politics, empire and trade. It powered the industrial revolution, turned Britain into the first urban nation and is the industry that made almost all others possible. 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. 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. Almost all traces of coal-mining have vanished from Britain but with this brilliant history, Black Gold demonstrates just how much we owe to the black stuff.

Download or read book Black Gold the History of How Coal Made Britain written by Jeremy Paxman and published by William Collins. This book was released on 2021-09-30 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bestselling historian and acclaimed broadcaster 'A rich social history ... Paxman's book could hardly be more colourful, and I enjoyed each page enormously' DOMINIC SANDBROOK, SUNDAY TIMES 'Vividly told ... Paxman's fine narrative powers are at their best' THE TIMES Coal is the commodity that made Britain. Dirty and polluting though it is, this black rock has acted as a midwife to genius. It drove industry, religion, politics, empire and trade. It powered the industrial revolution, turned Britain into the first urban nation and is the industry that made almost all others possible. 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. 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. Almost all traces of coal-mining have vanished from Britain but with this brilliant history, Black Gold demonstrates just how much we owe to the black stuff.

Download or read book The Shadow of the Mine written by Huw Beynon and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2024-03-19 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No one personified the age of industry more than the miners. The Shadow of the Mine tells the story of King Coal in its heyday – and what happened to mining communities after the last pits closed. 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

Download or read book Black Gold and Blackmail written by Rosemary A. Kelanic and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2020-05-15 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Black Gold and Blackmail seeks to explain why great powers adopt such different strategies to protect their oil access from politically motivated disruptions. In extreme cases, such as Imperial Japan in 1941, great powers fought wars to grab oil territory in anticipation of a potential embargo by the Allies; in other instances, such as Germany in the early Nazi period, states chose relatively subdued measures like oil alliances or domestic policies to conserve oil. What accounts for this variation? Fundamentally, it is puzzling that great powers fear oil coercion at all because the global market makes oil sanctions very difficult to enforce. Rosemary A. Kelanic argues that two variables determine what strategy a great power will adopt: the petroleum deficit, which measures how much oil the state produces domestically compared to what it needs for its strategic objectives; and disruptibility, which estimates the susceptibility of a state's oil imports to military interdiction—that is, blockade. Because global markets undercut the effectiveness of oil sanctions, blockade is in practice the only true threat to great power oil access. That, combined with the devastating consequences of oil deprivation to a state's military power, explains why states fear oil coercion deeply despite the adaptive functions of the market. Together, these two variables predict a state's coercive vulnerability, which determines how willing the state will be to accept the costs and risks attendant on various potential strategies. Only those great powers with large deficits and highly disruptible imports will adopt the most extreme strategy: direct control of oil through territorial conquest.

Download or read book Coal Mining in Britain written by Richard Hayman and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-08-25 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Coal heated the homes, fuelled the furnaces and powered the engines of the Industrial Revolution. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the coalfields – distinct landscapes of colliery winding frames, slag heaps and mining villages – made up Britain's industrial heartlands. Coal was known as 'black gold' but it was only brought to the surface with skill and at considerable risk, with flooding, rock falls and gas explosions a constant danger. Coal miners became a recognised force in British political life, forming a vociferous and often militant lobby for better working conditions and a decent standard of living. This beautifully illustrated guide to Britain's industrial heritage covers not just the mines, but the lives of the workers away from the pits, with a focus on the cultural and religious life of mining communities.

Download or read book Coffee written by Antony Wild and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the tale of the wildfire spread of the consumption of a drink which is embedded in our history and our daily cultural life. The coffee industry worldwide employs more people - 30 million - than any other. It is the lifeblood of many third world countries, either earning them invaluable foreign currency or enslaving them to the monster that is modern global capitalism, depending on how you look at it. From obscure beginnings in East Africa a millennia ago and its early days as an aid to religious devotion, coffee became an integral part of the rise of European mercantilism from the 17th-century onwards. As well as being a valued trading commodity, it was the preferred beverage of the merchants who did the trading. The rise of the coffee house and the City of London were inextricably, perhaps even mysteriously linked.

Download or read book Black Diamonds written by Catherine Bailey and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2008-03-06 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wentworth is in Yorkshire and was surrounded by 70 collieries employing tens of thousands of men. It is the finest and largest Georgian house in Britain andbelonged to the Fitzwilliam family. It is England's forgotten palace which belonged to Britain's richest aristocrats. Black Diamonds tells the story of its demise: family feuds, forbidden love, class war, and a tragic and violent death played their part. But coal, one of the most emotive issues in twentieth century British politics, lies at its heart. This is the extraordinary story of how the fabric of English society shifted beyond recognition in fifty turbulent years in the twentieth century.

Download or read book Black Gold written by Albert Marrin and published by Knopf Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 2013-01-08 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Oil is not pretty, but it is a resource that drives the modern world. It has made fortunes for the lucky few and provided jobs for millions of ordinary folks. Thick and slippery, crude oil has an evil smell. Yet without it, life as we live it today would be impossible. Oil fuels our engines, heats our homes, and powers the machines that make the everyday things we take for granted, from shopping bags to computers to medical equipment. Nations throughout the last century have gone to war over it. Indeed, oil influences every aspect of modern life. It helps shape the history, society, politics, and economy of every nation on earth. This riveting new book explores what oil is and the role this precious resource has played in America and the world.

Download or read book Powering Empire written by On Barak and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2020-03-24 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Age of Empire was driven by coal, and the Middle East—as an idea—was made by coal. Coal’s imperial infrastructure presaged the geopolitics of oil that wreaks carnage today, as carbonization threatens our very climate. Powering Empire argues that we cannot promote worldwide decarbonization without first understanding the history of the globalization of carbon energy. How did this black rock come to have such long-lasting power over the world economy? Focusing on the flow of British carbon energy to the Middle East, On Barak excavates the historic nexus between coal and empire to reveal the political and military motives behind what is conventionally seen as a technological innovation. He provocatively recounts the carbon-intensive entanglements of Western and non-Western powers and reveals unfamiliar resources—such as Islamic risk-aversion and Gandhian vegetarianism—for a climate justice that relies on more diverse and ethical solutions worldwide.

Download or read book Empire written by Jeremy Paxman and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2011-10-06 with total page 437 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bestselling author of The English comes Empire, Jeremy Paxman's history of the British Empire accompanied by a flagship 5-part BBC TV series, for readers of Simon Schama and Andrew Marr. The influence of the British Empire is everywhere, from the very existence of the United Kingdom to the ethnic composition of our cities. It affects everything, from Prime Ministers' decisions to send troops to war to the adventurers we admire. From the sports we think we're good at to the architecture of our buildings; the way we travel to the way we trade; the hopeless losers we will on, and the food we hunger for, the empire is never very far away. In this acute and witty analysis, Jeremy Paxman goes to the very heart of empire. As he describes the selection process for colonial officers ('intended to weed out the cad, the feeble and the too clever') the importance of sport, the sweating domestic life of the colonial officer's wife ('the challenge with cooking meat was "to grasp the fleeting moment between toughness and putrefaction when the joint may possibly prove eatable"') and the crazed end for General Gordon of Khartoum, Paxman brings brilliantly to life the tragedy and comedy of Empire and reveals its profound and lasting effect on our nation and ourselves. 'Paxman is witty, incisive, acerbic and opinionated . . . In short, he carries the whole thing off with panache bordering on effrontery' Piers Brendon, Sunday Times 'Paxman is a magnificent historian, and Empire may be remembered as his finest work' Independent on Sunday Jeremy Paxman was born in Yorkshire and educated at Cambridge. He is an award-winning journalist who spent ten years reporting from overseas, notably for Panorama. He is the author of five books including The English. He is the presenter of Newsnight and University Challenge and has presented BBC documentaries on various subjects including Victorian art and Wilfred Owen.

Download or read book Great Britain s Great War written by Jeremy Paxman and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2013-10-03 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jeremy Paxman's magnificent history of the First World War tells the entire story of the war in one gripping narrative from the point of view of the British people. NOW A MAJOR BBC TELEVISION SERIES "He writes so well and sympathetically, and chooses his detail so deftly, that if there is one new history of the war that you might actually enjoy from the very large centennial selection this is very likely it" The Times We may think we know about it, but what was life really like for the British people during the First World War? The well-known images - the pointing finger of Lord Kitchener; a Tommy buried in the mud of the Western Front; the memorial poppies of remembrance day - all reinforce the idea that it was a pointless waste of life. So why did the British fight it so willingly and how did the country endure it for so long? Using a wealth of first-hand source material, Jeremy Paxman brings vividly to life the day-to-day experience of the British over the entire course of the war, from politicians, newspapermen, campaigners and Generals, to Tommies, factory workers, nurses, wives and children, capturing the whole mood and morale of the nation. It reveals that life and identity in Britain were often dramatically different from our own, and show how both were utterly transformed - not always for the worst - by the enormous upheaval of the war. Rich with personalities, surprises and ironies, this lively narrative history paints a picture of courage and confusion, doubts and dilemmas, and is written with Jeremy Paxman's characteristic flair for storytelling, wry humour and pithy observation. "A fine introduction to the part Britain played in the first of the worst two wars in history. The writing is lively and the detail often surprising and memorable" Guardian Jeremy Paxman is a renowned broadcaster, award-winning journalist and the bestselling author of seven works of non-fiction, including The English, The Political Animal and Empire.

Download or read book Women of the Durham Coalfield in the 19th Century written by Margaret Hedley and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2019-02-25 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The success of the Durham Coalfield and its important role in the Industrial Revolution is attributed to men of influence who owned the land and the pits, and men who worked in the coal-mining industry during the Victorian period. There has been very little written about the importance of the home life that supported the miners - their wives who, through heroic efforts, did their best to provide attractive, healthy, happy home for their husbands, often in appalling social conditions. To provide a welcoming atmosphere at home demanded tremendous resources and commitment from the miners' wives. Despite their many hardships these women selflessly put everyone in the family before themselves. They operated on less rest, less food at times of necessity and under the huge physical burden of work and the emotional burden of worry concerning the safety of their family. Women of the Durham Coalfield in the 19th Century: Hannah's Story addresses the lack of information about the role of women in the Durham Coalfield, engagingly explored through one woman's experience.

Download or read book Complicity written by Anne Farrow and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A startling and superbly researched book demythologizing the North’s role in American slavery “The hardest question is what to do when human rights give way to profits. . . . Complicity is a story of the skeletons that remain in this nation’s closet.”—San Francisco Chronicle The North’s profit from—indeed, dependence on—slavery has mostly been a shameful and well-kept secret . . . until now. Complicity reveals the cruel truth about the lucrative Triangle Trade of molasses, rum, and slaves that linked the North to the West Indies and Africa. It also discloses the reality of Northern empires built on tainted profits—run, in some cases, by abolitionists—and exposes the thousand-acre plantations that existed in towns such as Salem, Connecticut. Here, too, are eye-opening accounts of the individuals who profited directly from slavery far from the Mason-Dixon line. Culled from long-ignored documents and reports—and bolstered by rarely seen photos, publications, maps, and period drawings—Complicity is a fascinating and sobering work that actually does what so many books pretend to do: shed light on America’s past.

Download or read book George Stephenson written by Hunter Davies and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2004-07-22 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much is known about the achievements of George Stephenson and of his infamous creation, the Rocket, yet little is known of the man himself. This volume is a profile of the self-taught and often testy Geordie, whose Victorian invention is now the backbone of every nation on the planet.

Download or read book South Yorkshire Mining Villages written by Melvyn Jones and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2017-07-30 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over a period of more than 150 years between the late eighteenth century and the 1930s the South Yorkshire rural landscape was transformed by coal mining and the movement of coal. But it was not just the development of collieries, canals and railways that caused this transformation. The population of the coalfield grew at a phenomenal rate and the new mining population, many of them migrants from other parts of the country, had to be housed near to the collieries where they worked. Small residential colonies were built near the new collieries, existing rural villages expanded, new satellite villages were established and completely new mining communities were created, the later ones carefully planned and laid out in the form of geometrically designed estates. This copiously illustrated book explores the history of the physical and social development of these very varied mining communities, drawing on a wide variety of sources. It is the first book to cover this subject and includes topics such as the settlement that was specifically built for blackleg miners, the development in one village of a large Welsh-speaking colony, how Earl Fitzwilliam housed his colliers and their families and the views of well-known writers like Fred Kitchen, Roger Dataller and George Orwell on the colliery villages. The book will be of great interest not only to readers living in South Yorkshire but also to the descendants of South Yorkshire miners now living in other parts of the country and elsewhere.

Download or read book A Photographic History of Mining in South Wales written by John O'Sullivan and published by . This book was released on 2011-02 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A photographic history of mining in South Wales