The Miners of Decazeville

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Exploring the experiences of past generations of workers is essential if we are to find just solutions to the critical issues facing workers today. Many governments are struggling with the problems of deindustrialization, but few historic assessments of this dilemma exist to serve as tools of analysis. In The Miners of Decazeville, Donald Reid traces the rise and fall of industry over almost two centuries—from the final decades of the ancien régime until the Fifth Republic—in a coal-mining community in southwestern France. In Decazeville the miners experienced both full industrial development and deindustrialization, phenomena that are not simply economic but social, political, and human as well.

Reid analyzes the interactions of miners, managers, and the state in the making and unmaking of an industrial community. He unmasks the intricacies of the distribution of managerial authority, demonstrates the ramifications of the early intervention of the state, charts the development of workers’ political and national identity, and sensitively portrays the struggle against the insecurity that menaces workers’ lives. This contribution to social and economic history, labor history, and the history of management sets agendas for future work in this significant area of contemporary history.