Learn about the history of Capitalism by watching....Poldark?

Article discusses the economic struggles in Cornish mining which are the background for the melodrama of Poldark.

Professor Steven Fielding – director of the Centre for British Politics at Nottingham University – points in a recent article to the radical context of the original books: "The first Poldark novel was published in 1945, the year Britain elected a Labour government intent on building a more egalitarian society. Graham's work was shaped by that context." Fielding even sees the maid-marrying hero as "a kind of 18th-century Robin Hood" whose "romantic life echoes his ambiguous place in the social order". Yet Ross "was not quite a socialist. The hero was instead a One Nation figure, a man of elevated birth who considered he had responsibilities to look after his tenants and workers." 

The article goes on to tell of the not so glamourous story of mining, i.e. the poverty and health problems of the miners, and the problem of mine disasters (which are part of the backstory of the miniseries)

Ah, but "globalization" 50 years later lead to the closing of many of the mines and the Cornish diaspora.


the Warleggan character is the one who symbolizes the new man of the industrial revolution.

related item: Professor Bob's podcasts lately have discussed the "robber barons" behind America's industrialization.