Author Description

Published in collaboration with Derby Area Trades Union Council this book is the first volume of 'Defence or Defiance' a People's History of Derbyshire. It provides a complete look at the history, people, economy and culture of England's heartland from the early 16th Century to the 1970s. Above all, it seeks to keep the reader up to speed by locating Derbyshire's events against the national picture. From Derby's herculean struggle against textile masters in 1833-4, or the millocracy as Marx dubbed them, to the county's magnificent solidarity with the miners in the General Strike of 1926. Sourced from original documents, newspapers, dusty minute books, oral reminiscences and hundreds of secondary texts, Graham Stevenson's account will be inspiring to all trades unionists and a resservoir of rich information for academics and students of labour history.