Silver, Sin and Sixpenny Ale: A Social History of Broken Hill, 1883-1921 by Brian Kennedy

Book Description

Secondhand. Good condition. Wear to book corners and edges. Foxing marks on foredges and some pages. Dust jacket has minor creasing at edges and at spine. Tears at spine and top edge. Dust jacket is now in protective cover.

A social history of one of the most famous and fascinating mining towns of Australia.

The book captures the boundless optimism and hopes of the great silver boom and its promoters, that precious moment in the 1880s when everything seemed possible. This culminated in an instant city of 30,000 people and the near-miraculous transformation of the wilderness into a metropolis.

The boom's collapse plunged the silver city into gloom and despair. During the 1880s and 1890s, Broken Hill changed character. The original prospectors disappeared, and one company, BHP, dominated the town and all its mining competitors.

Conflict between organised labour and capital became the order of the day. That struggle rose to a crescendo in the 19-month strike of 1919-20, forming this book's climax. Without the arrival of militant mass socialism and the stresses of WWI, it would have been impossible to understand the bitterness and fiercely ideological quality of the strike. (book flap)