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Richard Mellor
Not much of a class analysis here, but a useful bit of history. British capitalism had the children of its own working class working deep underground in mines as young as 8 or 9 years old and also in the cotton mills of Lancashire for example. Eric Foner's short book about the US Civil War and the attempts to get the British government to break the cotton blockade and assist the South is a decent read. I read it a long time ago but I recall it pointing out that the Lancashire cotton mill workers were resistant to undermine the slave north's efforts as it was in their interests for the blacks in the south to win the right to vote, something they didn't have.
The real weakness is that he refuses to even hint that there is such a thing as capitalism let alone class in society. There are just billionaires, their rotten ways and of course humanity. If we all only loved each other.
A good book (I'm no expert mind you) on the Mau Mau uprising, predominantly Kikuyu though not exclusively, is Histories of the Hanged. On The Biafran War (Nigerian Civil War) The Brothers War by John de St Jorre gives a fairly decent account.
1 comment:
Thanks for the info Richard. You're right, all good stuff but no class analysis. In these deadly times there can be no obverscatIon, no dilly dally, or pussy footin around. Capitalism has had no problems herd immuning our poor and most vulnerable over these last weeks.
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