Cylchgronau Cymru

STRIKES AND Solidarity: Coalfield Conflict IN BRITAIN, 1889-1966. By Roy Church and Quentin Outram. Cambridge University Press, 1998. Pp. xx, 314. £ 45.00. This fascinating book develops a framework in the quest to explain the distribution of local strikes in the coal industry between the formation of the Miner's Federation of Great Britain and the introduction of the National Power Loading Agreement. The authors note that many collieries rarely had local stoppages, whilst a minority were characterized, often for limited periods, by relatively frequent strikes. Such periods were often proceeded and succeeded by quiescence. Some coalfields-Scotland and south Wales, and latterly Yorkshire-recorded relatively high overall strike rates, but within such apparently militant coalfields there were many pits where the incidence of strikes was low. Equally, in generally strike-free districts individual collieries became notable at particular moments for relatively high strike levels. One understandable response to such diversity would be to proclaim the hopelessness of any search for a general explanation; instead each strike should be seen as unique, the product of its own distinctive combination of causes. Yet the accumulation of such specific accounts rests on often unarticulated assumptions about the cause of militancy and of acqui- escence. The great merit of this book is that it responds to agnosticism with a careful explanation of the prospects and limitations of a general account. This involves a judicious use of insights derived from the social sciences- for example, Durkheimian approaches to solidarity, and social exchange theory-with their insistent interrogation by historical sources. One of the strengths of the analysis is the way in which historical accounts are marshalled effectively in pursuit of this agenda. The discussion of miners' solidarity-its diverse character, its limitation -is one of the book's great strengths. The authors distinguish effectively between the solidarity that could develop within a particular workplace and community and the solidarity demonstrated in district and national actions. They insist plausibly that the broader mobilizations require a 'constructed' solidarity that built on the accumulated experience of successful and failed initiatives. These actions were in no sense the aggregate, or simple consequence, of local solidarities. The latter utilized local social capital-the resources generated in workplace and community. 'Construction' also had a part to play here. The capacity to concert interests was crucial; individual pits and miners' communities contained grounds for division which could be overcome by creative initiatives, or dissolved by employers' policies. This analysis makes effective use of social