Zola's masterpiece of working life, Germinal (1885), exposes the inhuman conditions of miners in northern France in the 1860s. By Zola's death in 1902 it had come to symbolise the call for freedom from oppression so forcefully that the crowd which gathered at his State funeral chanted 'Germinal! Germinal!'. The central figure, Etienne Lantier, is an outsider who enters the community and ...

Growing up in a mining community in rural South Wales, Huw Morgan is taught many harsh lessons. Looking back, where difficult days are faced with courage and the valleys swell with the sound of Welsh voices, it becomes clear that there is nowhere so green as the landscape of his own memory.

Corgi. The third fantasy tale in the popular Crystal Singer sequence from Anne McCaffrey, creator of the Dragons of Pern series and one of the world's leading fantasy authors.

This volume of essays provides a comprehensive survey at national, regional and local levels of this key moment in British social history. Beginning with an overview and chronology, chapters then deal with regional perspectives and specific themes including the communist party and the church.

A brooding, compelling, fugitive-on-the-run story Shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Winner of the International Association of Crime Writers Dashiell Hammett Prize, Longlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

In 1994 the author revealed, for the first time, the astonishing lengths to which the Conservative government and its secret services were prepared to go to destroy the power of Britain's miners' union. This edition has been updated for the 20th anniversary of the Miners' Strike.

An account of family life and labor conflicts told through the eyes of a tough, resilient Appalachian woman. It exposes the economic conditions of the working class and the scarcity of opportunities for working-class women. It also tells the story of a loving marriage that endures despite severe hardships.

Spanning the years 1840-1875, this study focuses on the settlement of Upper Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula, telling the story of reluctant pioneers who attempted to establish a decent measure of comfort, control, and security in what was in many ways a hostile environment.

This study is of the history of the padrone, a mafia-like immigrant boss who allegedly enslaved his compatriots.

The 1984 miners' strike brought to vivid, painful and dramatic life by David Peace. Here he describes the entire civil war, with corruption from government to boardroom, and all the tumultuous violence, passion and dirty tricks.

Coal has transformed societies, shaped the fate of nations, launched empires, and triggered wars. It fuelled the Industrial Revolution in Britain, propelling the rise of a small rural kingdom into the greatest commercial empire in the world. This book explores the profound role coal has played in human history and continues to play in the world.

As the railroads open up the American West to settlers in the last half of the 19th century, the Plains Indians made their final stand and cattle ranches spread from Texas to Montana. Dee Brown here illuminates the struggle between these three groups as they fought for a place in this new landscape.

By the author of "Gorky Park". This novel is the story of Jonathan Blair, an American adventurer cast adrift in Victorian England who must travel north to solve the mysterious disappearance of a young cleric - and confront his own heart of darkness.

A group of 20 Irish immigrants, suspected of comprising a secret terrorist organization called the Molly Maguires , were executed in Pennsylvania in the 1870s for the murder of 16 men. This work offers a new interpretation of their dramatic story, tracing the origins of the group.

Tells the story of Lyman Ward, a retired professor of history and author of books about the Western frontier, who returns to his ancestral home in the Sierra Nevada. Wheelchair-bound with a crippling bone disease, Ward embarks on a search to rediscover his grandmother, who made her own journey to Grass Valley nearly a 100 years earlier.

A story to celebrate the life of a dog.