MARK TURNER holds on tight for a mesmerising display of Neath-born ragtime virtuosity
On Burnley Road: Class, Race and Politics in a Northern English Town
Salutary lessons to be learned from race riots in a ‘red wall’ Burnley
DECLINE: Abandoned factories symbolise Burnley's impoverishment in recent decades
[David Dixon/Creative Commons] 
ALAN MORRISON introduces a UK poet whose despised daytime occupation provides the subject for his writing
MARK TURNER wallows in the virtuosity of Swansea Jazz Festival openers, Simon Spillett and Pete Long
PAUL DONOVAN recommends three new books that explore the human relationship with nature
Doomed adolescents, when the missing person is you, classic whodunnit, and an anti-capitalist eco-thriller
WILL STONE takes a ticket to indie disco heaven, but misses the rarely performed tunes
IN JUNE 2001, there was a sudden outburst of racial rioting in the old Lancashire town of Burnley, one with a long weaving tradition and home to a settled minority community of Asian Muslims, mainly from Bangladesh, Gujarat and Pakistan who had lived in the town in seeming amity with their neighbours. That was clearly not the case.
Mike Makin-White, a former member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, was at the time working in community relations for Burnley Council, helping to promote community cohesion and good race relations during a decade when the BNP won seats on the council.
In this book, after a short but useful historical introduction to the town, he provides an incisive step-by-step description and perceptive analysis of what lay behind those riots.
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