For Freedom and Dignity: Historical Agency and Class Structures in the Coalfields of NSW (Routledge Revivals)

First published in 1988, For Freedom and Dignity is a highly original and sophisticated study of the social history of the Coalfields of the Hunter Valley, renowned as the heart of Australian political radicalism for much of the twentieth century. The book evokes without sentimentality a deep feeling for the lives of the Coalfields people and without false heroism it shows the way in which they have continually struggled for freedom and dignity.One major theme is the moral struggle waged by coalminers striving to maintain a sense of dignity in the context of social relations that symbolically denied their humanity; another is the importance of violence and the processes of political organisation in class struggle.For Freedom and Dignity uses the approach of social historians to challenge some of the common sociological preconceptions about coalminers, proletarians and the ways in which classes struggle.Critically developing the work of writers like E.P. Thompson and Jean-Paul Sartre, t