The Road to Wigan Pier (Penguin Audiobooks)

Rating:
Summary: Lesser known of Orwell's work, but NOT lesser valued...
Review: What a valuable examination! As other reviewers have pointed out, the Left Book Club of UK nearly three quarters of a century ago (!) commissioned Mr. Orwell to write on the condition of the coal miners in North Yorkshire. The first half of the book shows Orwell's observations of the squalor and struggles of those working people. However, Orwell continued with a whole second essay. In that second portion of the text, he criticized the left for its arrogance, its being out of touch with that which it claimed to want to remedy.

Orwell raises issues that could as easily apply today pertinent to those dedicated to "change" the conditions of those of whom they have little grasp. That's the only depressing thing about the book: so little has changed in so much time.

Some observations on the then-growing fascist movement in Europe are eye-openers too.

Read it and weep? Or read it and LEARN!