The Australian novel, Lightning Mine, covers the development of an iron ore mine on a sacred land guarded by “Namarrkon'; in the Northern Territory. MDG/Global mining was very interested in the area, and sent their chief prospector, Aaron Shoemaker to investigate the land. Whilst Shoemaker is there, he sets off a chain of corporate and government tactics to ensure the development of the mine on the Aboriginal sacred site. These tactics, as you can imagine, were not overly fair to the Aboriginal people, and their only hope was through University of Sydney law graduate, Jarra Mariba.
Quickly, the development of the themes and issues become clear, especially through the arrogant ignorance of the CEO of MDG/Global corporation portrayed by the author. “No stone is unturned in the name of progress';, states the CEO to Jarra, showing the clear message that nothing will stop the capitalist machine from destroying the sacred land.
With full government support, the mine goes ahead, and quickly Shoemaker realises what this will lead to. The corporate tactics continue to ensure a smooth running of the mine, even to the extent of killing Mariba’s wife.
The resolution of the book fits in well with the theme. Namarrkon: The Lightning Spirit, the guard of the sacred site, stirs up a freak electrical storm, and totally destroys the mine. Furthermore, the CEO, Sir Peter Gables, gets killed by the storm whilst in a helicopter trying to escape the wraith of the storm. Mariba gets shot, but is amazingly saved by Shoemaker, who is a changed man by this time.
What the novel focuses on is that it takes a supernatural event to stop such capitalist progress, but it can happen.
My International novel was set in a very different context, present day Russia. The book was extremely well done, and is about the opening of the Soviet achieves. Central to the story, is Fluke Kelso, a middle-aged former Oxford historian who comes into contact with an old NKVD guard who was present during Stalin’s final hours. The former NKVD officer tells Kelso of a little black oilskin notebook which stalin kept close, which lead into a race against time to find the book, as the news quickly spreads. The secrets to Stalin’s life open up, and soon a Stalinist/Marxist fanatic called Mamantov goes in search for Stalin’s famous unknown son, as well as Kelso, and an international reporter wanting a good story.
Storming Heaven is Denise Giardina’s second and award winning novel, published in 1987. The historical novel is a fiction-based recount of the bitter labor conflict that took place in southern West Virginia during the early 1920s, otherwise known as the West Virginia Coal Wars. The author tells the story of the real conflict faced by miners through the eyes of four main characters, each from different walks of life, with their own different point of view. The story told about the real life hardship faced by coal miners and the ensuing conflict is a subject narrowly covered by The American Journey. Although the story that is told through the main characters is fictionalized, it provides a historically accurate portrayal of the events that unfolded during the early 1920s. The book does a great job of covering not only how the coal miners cohesively withstood the hardship placed before them by the invasive coal companies, but also the tactics used by the coal companies to ensure their business interests took precedence over more humane living and working conditions.
Culturally, the Stone Mountain Coal Company is able to maintain control over the residents of Matewan by promoting ignorance and fear of the unknown—“strike breakers,” races, and unions. Pitting Matewan’s resident workers against the incoming strikebreakers allows the Company freedom to raise competition levels for jobs that all the workers need to live, while lowering the amount of mone...
The tar creek mining site originally was owned by a Native American tribe, the Quapaw. The Quapaw wanted to keep these lands, but the Bureau of Indian Affairs deemed members opposing a transaction to mining companies “incompetent” (1). In such a case the business could continue and the Bureau of Indian Affairs sold the lands to mining companies. In essence these lands were stolen from the Quapaw because they were ripe for mining. These mines were then used from approximately 1891 to 1970. In the 79 years the mines were open 1.7 million metric tons (~3.75 billion pounds) of lead and 8.8 million metric tons (~19.4 billion pounds) of zinc were withdrawn from the mine (2). The entire area around Tar Creek is known as the tri-state mining area. This tri-state area was a massive source of metals. This area accounted for 35% of the all worldwide metal for a decade. It also provided the majority of metals the United States used in World wars I and II (3).
In addition, chapter five creates a clear image of the devastation that the farmers faced and their hatred for the "monster" bank. This interchapter allows the reader to experience the passion that the farmers have toward the land and the choices they had to make concerning betrayal of their own people. It presents the reader with a broad prospective of what is happening to the tenant farmers before ...
issues that the author deal with in the book are a prediction of the future; it can
From the novel, it can then be concluded that issues that may seem to have disappeared from the world still thrive no matter the period of time. There is still some sort of oppression that takes place even if not necessarily by one race over another. Slavery, racism and gender abuses are still very much a part of the modern world. No matter how they seem to be removed from the world, there is still a little part of them that thrives within the very fabric of society.
In theory women during the Elizabethan Age had no power in their homes. In royal families the women are the breeders, they had the responsibility to keep the royal bloodline flowing by having male children to keep the male dominance. “A woman whose job is to represent the family, is doing the traditionally female job of being wife or mother.” (Billig) Gertrude’s role in the play had fairly little significance, besides that she was a mother and wife. She showed no reasons as to why she was in such a rush to remarry after her husband, King Hamlet’s death. Claudius, being the wicked man that he was, may have been so eager to claim the thrown as King that he married the widow to rule Denmark. This whole ordeal of his uncle sleeping with his mother made Hamlet infuriated and ill to his stomach. Hamlet showed his emotions when he said:
he know that he killed his father, who’s also his own brother. Claudius is pretty much using a
In the year 1989, Mr. David Walsh founded the company Bre-X Minerals Ltd., a Canadian firm specializing in mineral exploration. Within the same decade as the founding, the firm would become involved in what became labeled as the ‘world’s biggest mining scam’ and caused shareholders to lose approximately three billion dollars. Four years after the company’s establishment, Walsh was purchased a plot of land in Indonesia bordering the Busang River based on information provided by John Felderhof, a geologist, of the potential profit that could be secured in the area. In 1994 core drilling of the property began and lab results agreed with the promise of gold mineralization; however, these results had been skewed by project manager Michael De Guzman
Heilbrun, Carolyn G. (2002). Hamlet's Mother and Other Women. 2nd ed. West Sussex: Columbia University Press.
Garrett, Brandon. Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2011. 86. Print.
The novel is starkly realistic. With the Joads as they travel, we meet the dark underside of capitalism with its uncontrolled poverty, its inhuman greed and human cost, and sense a fractured trust between government and people. The underside cont...
Platt, Kevin M. F. and David Brandenberger, eds. Epic Revisionism: Russian History and Literature as Stalinist Propaganda. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 2006.
cruel deed Claudius has done, the reader does not know yet but Claudius is the reason that King
Warhurst, A. (1999). Mining and the environment: case studies from the Americas. Ottawa, ON, Canada: International Development Research Centre.