Robert Gildea
Author of Marianne in Chains: Daily Life in the Heart of France During the German Occupation
About the Author
Robert Gildea is a professor of modern European history at the University of Oxford
Works by Robert Gildea
Marianne in Chains: Daily Life in the Heart of France During the German Occupation (2002) 190 copies
Barricades and Borders: Europe 1800-1914 (Short Oxford History of the Modern World) (1996) 47 copies
Barricades and Borders: Europe 1800-1914 (Short Oxford History of the Modern World) (2003) 46 copies
Barricades and Borders: Europe 1800-1914, 3rd Edition (Short Oxford History of the Modern World) 32 copies
Surviving Hitler and Mussolini: Daily Life in Occupied Europe (Occupation in Europe) (2006) 14 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Gildea, Robert Nigel
- Birthdate
- 1952
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- UK
- Places of residence
- Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, UK
Members
Reviews
Lists
THE WAR ROOM (2)
Awards
You May Also Like
Statistics
- Works
- 24
- Members
- 732
- Popularity
- #34,695
- Rating
- 3.5
- Reviews
- 4
- ISBNs
- 61
- Languages
- 2
In his introduction, Robert Gildea notes the resonance of Lynch’s rhetoric as a reason to pay the strike renewed attention. He also acknowledges the breadth of scholarship on the strike, both contemporary reportage and memoirs and more recent explorations: Seumas Milne (1994) on the involvement of state intelligence services, Diarmaid Kelliher (2021) on the cultural links developed between London and the coalfields, and Huw Beynon and Ray Hudson (2021) on the strike’s bleak legacy. All of which might cause us to ask not whether we should now pay attention to the Miners’ Strike, but whether we have paid enough already.
What Backbone of the Nation offers, however, is the first comprehensive oral history of the strike based on new interviews supplemented with archived testimony from across Wales, England and Scotland. It has a cast of ordinary characters (some, like MP and scholar Hywel Francis and activist Anne Scargill, are better known than others) and its objective overview extends to the miners of Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire as well as the rock-solid strongholds of Yorkshire and south Wales.
The book’s title is reflected in the opening outline of coal mining’s development in Britain. From our post-industrial perspective, the story is overshadowed by the knowledge of impending disaster, but mining communities at the time of the strike had also glimpsed what was coming. Siân James, whose journey from miner’s wife and activist to MP formed part of the 2014 film Pride, recalls that 1984 had ‘the inevitability of a train wreck’.
Gildea is clear that, although demand for coal had been in decline for decades before Thatcher, the 1984-85 strike was a deliberate act. The intricacies of internal ballots, picketing strategies and tactical divisions across different regions of the coalfield – keenly debated here by contributors – were secondary to the overall desire for a titanic clash of people and state. In preparation, the government stockpiled coal, appointed the hawkish Ian MacGregor as National Coal Board chairman, and drew up a list of colliery closures that would decimate the industry. On the other side, Gildea records an uncompromising generation of young miners, often Marx-reading students of industrial relations, economics and politics, intent on shaking up their union’s staid bureaucracy.
Read the rest of the review at HistoryToday.com.
Rhian E. Jones writes on history and politics.… (more)