Beautiful and concise. I'm not trained as a historian so I can't judge the book's methods, but the event described is remarkable: About a century and a half ago, during the American Civil War, British industrial workers were cast into starvation as the cotton mills shut down due to the Union blockade. The working poor, perennially hungry but now starving, could've very easily joined the rest of British society in supporting the Confederates so the cotton would flow again. But they didn't. Instead, they organized and stood in solidarity with the Union against slavery, despite the deprivations it caused them.

It's good to keep these stories in your back pocket, like a packet of valiums, for when you really need it.