Coal Country: The Meaning and Memory of Deindustrialization in Postwar Scotland

by Ewan Gibbs

The flooding and subsequent closure of Scotland’s last deep coal mine in 2002 was a milestone event in the nation’s deindustrialization. Villages and towns across the densely populated Central Belt of Scotland owe their existence to coal mining’s expansion during the nineteenth century and its maturation in the twentieth. Colliery closures and job losses were not just experienced in economic they also had profound social, cultural, and political implications.  Coal Country  documents this process of deindustrialization and its effects, drawing on archival records from the UK government, the nationalized coal industry, trade unions, and transcripts from an extensive oral history project. Deindustrialization, we learn, progressed slowly but powerfully across the second half of the twentieth century.  Coal Country  explains the deep roots of economic changes and their political reverberations, which continue to be felt to this day.

250 pages, Paperback

First published March 18, 2021

Reviews

[Jay W · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very cool to read about the places my great grandparents worked and lived and especially poignant to read it while working at a coal mine and living in a coal mining town.

[Jenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

read for research (fall 2022 political science capstone paper)