As the polemical tone of the public debate about Margaret Thatcher's political legacy that ensued following her death in 2013 demonstrated clearly, the coal miners' strike of 1984–85 was one of the most important, controversial, and bitterly contested events in twentieth-century British political history. Thirty years on from the strike, this timely book by Jim Phillips is the first full-length academic study of the dispute from the Scottish perspective.

In the introduction to Collieries, Communities and the Miners' Strike in Scotland, 1984–85, Phillips places the events of the strike in Scotland in their broader historigraphical context and, in so doing, provides a cogent summary of the secondary literature on the 1984–85 strike. His central contention is that the general tendency in the historiography to concentrate on Arthur Scargill, the president of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), Thatcher, and national-level developments has had the effect of obscuring the strike's broader economic, social, and cultural dimensions. By focusing on the Scottish miners, Phillips aims to provide a counterpoint to this, presenting the strike as a popular and socially embedded movement and establishing the broader significance of the links between collieries and communities. In this respect, there are important parallels between this book and my own work on the history of the South Wales miners.

Following the introduction, the book is divided into two main sections, the first of which deals with the origins and outbreak of the 1984–85 strike in Scotland and the second of which examines the events and aftermath of the strike itself. The first of these sections is subdivided into two chapters and the second section is subdivided into four chapters. The first chapter provides a useful summary of the history of the Scottish coalfield from the nationalization of the coal industry in 1947 to the early 1980s, highlighting the impact that developments within the industry had on the various coalfield communities of Scotland. Building upon this, the second chapter analyzes the origins of the strike in Scotland, emphasizing the significance of the confrontational approach to industrial relations taken by Albert Wheeler, the National Coal Board's area director for Scotland. Phillips notes, quite correctly, that various Scottish collieries were already out on strike in protest at the National Coal Board's closure program when the NUM's national call for strike action was made in March 1984.

The third chapter examines the industrial politics of the strike in Scotland, with particular attention being given to the miners' attempts to halt steel production at Ravenscraig steelworks, near Motherwell. Although this strategy was controversial at the time and has also been a subject of subsequent historiographical criticism, Phillips stresses that it was a logical target for the Scottish miners, which came close to success in May 1984. Chapter 4 analyzes the strength of the bonds within and between Scottish mining communities, considering the respective roles of specific socioeconomic and cultural factors in determining the varying degrees of strike solidarity that manifested themselves across the collieries of Scotland. The fifth chapter deals with the ending of the strike in March 1985 and the ensuing aftermath of the miners' defeat. Here, Phillips is critical of the assertion that often appears in the historiography, that the strike could have ended differently, in ways more beneficial to the miners, had the NUM not been led by Scargill. The book's final chapter considers the long-term legacy of the strike, particularly the deindustrialization of the Scottish coalfield that followed the miners' defeat. Phillips concludes that the history of the 1984–85 strike can only be fully understood via focusing on the centrality of workplace and community experiences, asserting that the dominant emphasis in the historiography on high politics and leaders' personalities has been a distortion and a distraction from this.

Although it is a detailed and well-written book, Collieries, Communities and the Miners' Strike in Scotland is not without its faults. There are no maps: although not a major failing, their omission does not help readers without a good grasp of Scottish geography to follow some of the points that the book makes. More problematic is Phillips's attempt in chapter 4 (to which he returns in his conclusion in chapter 6) to construct and utilize a quantitative framework to explain the interactions of various socioeconomic and cultural factors in determining the differing levels of solidarity shown by Scottish mining communities during the strike. Phillips is certainly correct to say that such factors were of vital importance, but as he inadvertently demonstrates, they are very difficult to quantify in a way that meaningfully facilitates a greater understanding of their interaction. Although it is an ambitious and conceptually novel undertaking, this quantitative methodology unfortunately does not add extra insight to the excellent analysis that characterizes the book as a whole.

These relatively minor criticisms notwithstanding, Collieries, Communities and the Miners' Strike in Scotland is a very welcome addition to the historiography of the 1984–85 strike, for two main reasons. First, it fills an important gap in the literature by providing an authoritative history of the Scottish miners during the strike. Second, it uses its focus on the coalfield communities of Scotland to offer a thorough and detailed explanation of the strike as experienced by the miners themselves and their families, thereby providing a necessary and insightful counterpoint to the more national-oriented histories of the dispute. It deserves to be widely read.