Since the 1960s, nations across the “developed world” have been profoundly shaped by deindustrialization. In regions in which previously dominant industries faced crises or have disappeared altogether, industrial heritage offers a fascinating window into the phenomenon’s cultural dimensions. As the contributions to this volume demonstrate, even as forms of industrial heritage provide anchors of identity for local populations, their meanings remain deeply contested, as both radical and conservative varieties of nostalgia intermingle with critical approaches and straightforward apologias for a past that was often full of pain, exploitation and struggle.
Reviews
The 15 case studies are written to a uniformly high standard and provide a consistent approach to investigating each context's local cultural identity, which is increasingly important to maintain and acknowledge in this age of rapid globalization and homogenization of identity and economics. This analysis of specific regional examples of post-industrial history and the remembrance of an often romanticized, yet harsh, industrial identity will be of wide academic and regional interestRecommended. Choice
This collection of well-focused essays takes an original approach to a subject of very wide interest. It has substantial cross-disciplinary appeal. Chris Wrigley, Nottingham University
Constructing Industrial Pasts is a timely volume on post-industrial history and the processes and politics of remembrance. It covers a richly detailed set of case studies and makes an invaluable contribution to the field. Denis Byrne, Western Sydney University
List of Figures, Maps, and Tables
Introduction: Preconditions for the Making of an Industrial Past
Comparative Perspectives
Stefan Berger
Chapter
1. Sooty Manchester- (Re)Presenting an Urban-Industrial Landscape
Paul Pickering
Chapter
2. Where is Red Clydeside? Industrial Heritage, Working Class
Culture and Memory in the Glasgow Region
Arthur McIvor
Chapter
3. Industrial Heritage as Place-making: The Case of Wales
Bella Dicks
Chapter
4. The Steel Industry in Welsh History and Heritage
Louise Miskell
Chapter
5. Cornish Mining Heritage and Cornish Identity: Images,
Representations and Narratives
Hilary Orange
Chapter
6. Industrial Heritage and the Remaking of Class Identity Are We
All Middle Class Now?
Laurajane Smith
Chapter
7. The Agents of Industrial Heritage in the Midst of Structural
Transformation of the Latrobe Valley, Australia
Erik Eklund
Chapter
8. Hardly a Cause for Tears: Job Insecurity and Occupational
Psychology Culture in Italy - Oral Narratives from the Falck Steelworks in
Sesto San Giovanni (Milan)
Roberta Garruccio
Chapter
9. Between Dream and Nightmare: Political Conventions of the
Industrial Past in the North of France
Marion Fontaine
Chapter
10. Memory Culture and Identity Constructions in the Ruhr Valley in
Germany
Stefan Berger and Jana Golombek
Chapter
11. Sounds of Decline. Industrial Echoes in Asturian Music
Rubén Vega
Chapter
12. The Coal-Environment Nexus: How Nostalgic Identity Burdens
Heritage in Romanias Jiu Valley
David A. Kideckel
Chapter
13. A Special Kind of Cultural Heritage - The Remembrance of
Workers Life in Contemporary Hungary Case Study of Ózd
Tibor Valuch
Chapter
14. Ruins for Politics: Selling Industrial Heritage in Postsocialist
Chinas Rustbelt
Tong Lam
Chapter
15. The Heritage of the Chinese Eastern Railway: Symbol of
Colonization and International Cooperation
Zhao Xin and Qu Xiaofan
Conclusion: Narrativisations of an Industrial Past Labour, the Environment
and the Construction of Space in Comparative Perspective
Stefan Berger
Index
Stefan Berger is Professor of Social History and directs the Institute for Social Movements at the Ruhr University Bochum. He is also Chairman of the Foundation History of the Ruhr and Honorary Professor at Cardiff University in the UK. Before taking up his current position in Germany in 2011, he held the position of Professor of Modern German and Comparative European History at the University of Manchester.
