When Coal Was King

Chris Morier, University of Victoria:
The author provides a thorough and sensitive post-mortem of Ladysmith’s most troubled days. Well-researched, lucid, and supplemented with almost two dozen photographs, When Coal was King will appeal to a variety of readers.

Sean T. Cadigan:
Hinde’s community study is well researched and well grounded in Canadian working-class historiography.

David A. Wolff, Black Hills State University:
John R. Hinde’s rather understated title seems to imply that his book is simply as study of Vancouver Island’s coal industry as viewed through one community: Ladysmith. But his book is much more, for Hinde has a number of points to make about such topics as class-consciousness, radicalism, and militancy. In fact, this book is meant to be corrective. Throughout the text, he challenges interpretations other historians have developed while studying the area’s coal mines. Canadian labour historians will find the book interesting reading.

Alan McCullough:
John R. Hinde has written an engaged, subtle, and provocative account of coal miners on Vancouver Island. His study focuses on the 1898-1913 and on the mines in the vicinity of Ladysmith, but it includes context that illuminates the history of the industry throughout the island.