Derbyshire and the fight for democracy

by Graham Stevenson

£11.95 (+£1.50 p&p)  194pp illustrated

ISBN 978-1-907464-11-9

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 reservoir of rich information for academics and students of labour history.

Graham Stevenson was for some decades a senior official of the Transport and General Workers Union and its successor, Unite the Union, covering the transport industries at a national and international level. He is a former president of the European Transport Workers Federation. Since retiring he has taken up editoral duties for the new pamphlet series of the Communist Party's seminal publication Our History.