Silvertown

John Tully is Lecturer in Politics and History at Victoria University in Melbourne Australia. He is author of texts that include The Devil's Milk: A Social History of Rubber, A Short History of Cambodia: From Empire to Survival; and two novels, Dark Clouds on the Mountain and Death Is the Cool Night.

• Foreword by John Callow Introductory Comment by John Marriott Author's Preface Prologue: Wednesday 11 September 1889 Introduction to a Forgotten Struggle Samuel Silver's Palace of Industry Great Sacrifice, Great Barbarism A Time of Hope 'They Want My Life's Blood' The Strike Gains Momentum The Workers Disunited: Skilled vs. Unskilled at Silvertown 'There is no justice, mercy or compassion in the plutocracy' November: Hunger and Cold The Great Strike Collapses Epilogue

John Tully shows us how meticulous research and empathy for the dispossessed can recreate a past that is either forgotten or reduced to the forlorn. This is history at its best: rigorous in its use of sources and capacities to broaden our ways of seeing experience; analytically demanding in the ways it pushes us to rethink conventional wisdoms; and imaginative in the range of its arguments. Bryan D. Palmer, Canada Research Chair, Trent University This is a major contribution to labour history and to the history of East London. It is a serious work written not with the usual academic detachment, but with profound and moving empathy for the dispossessed and the exploited. This is recommended reading not only to historians and those concerned with East London, but as inspiration to those participating in today's urgent struggle against increasing social and economic injustice. Alvaro de Miranda, London East Research Institute, University of East London