![]() ![]() ![]() Miners kept their own mongrel libraries, leaving us behind a record of their interests and reading habits. It was common for a miller or blacksmith to prop a book by their workstation and sneak as many pages as they could of reading a day. I felt a certain sense of identity with the stories collected here since I could recognize many of these ordinary readers as kin. The tradition of the autodidact was strong in the British working class and eventually blossomed into the popular base of the Labor Party. In the past there was a great hunger for literature of all types among miners, colliers, factory workers and many other typically working class professions. ![]() In general this may be true, but as this book shows that is hardly an ineffable condition. Today the white working-class of Western societies is typically stereotyped as being unintellectual. This book is a resounding case for optimism. The bedrock of conservatism is a fundamental pessimism about the behavior of other people whereas progressivism is based on optimism. ![]()
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