Children of Rebecca

By Vivien Annis Bailey

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1870206177
• ISBN13: 9781870206174
• Release Date: October 1995
• Publisher: Honno Ltd
• Length: 290 Pages
• Weight: 0.84 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Taste of Rebellion

Children of Rebecca is the tale of Bethan and Sion whose travels take them through the class conflicts thrown up by the industrial revolution. It is set in the period of the Rebecca Riots and the Chartist led fight for the vote and against tyranny.If, like me, you find it difficult to wade through historical text and at the same time remember what you've just read, then this is an excellent book to give you a well researched and very believable account of what life must have been like just after the birth of capitalism.Through the story it explains the brutal conditions that drove labourers to the large industrial centres like Merthyr Tydfil only to find equal squalor. The book pays particular attention to what Victorian values were really like for the poorest women and the stark choices they faced.I found the story gripping, making it a difficult book to put down. The novel rattles on at a cracking pace and fits a lot in without losing the sense of the story that it is telling.The descriptions of the brutality of life are powerfully written, and are well balanced with the sense of rage that explodes when workers are fighting back. For instance, a passage where the anger is turned against a workhouse makes you want to be there.The novel is not an analysis of the Chartist movement and does not attempt to argue whether the Chartists were revolutionary or reformist. It does, however, include an accurate account of the debates that occurred within the movement such as the moral force versus physical force arguments.The reader is left with the clear picture that it was entirely justifiable that the Newport Rising took place and that an alliance with the Liberals would have achieved nothing. If you're looking for an enjoyable read and want to get a taste for what it must have been like to live through the rebellious 1830s and 40s, then you wouldn't go far wrong with this.