The industry that created the modern world, like it or not. No coal, no coke, no steam, no... well, you get the idea. By-products of the industry were also of critical importance to the development of chemistry and medicine. As an industry it was - and what's left of it
is - horrible to work in, and over the centuries it has killed a staggeringly high proportion of its workforce (not through pit disasters, as horrific as they are, but through pneumoconiosis). Yet it also provided - and largely because miners generally
fought for this - secure, skilled and relatively well paid employment for generations (almost nowhere is this still the case, of course). Miners were at the forefront of trade unionism and socialist politics in many countries, and mining communities had rich cultural lives. The changes to - and very frequently collapse of - the industry have led to social catastrophes. The correct opinion is a deeply conflicted one.
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