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substantial pits in the 1840s, through the periods of expansion which followed, until the second and third decades of the present century brought the decline and eventual collapse of the coal industry. He begins even before the beginning, for his opening chapter deals with rural housing in the area prior to its industrialization, while his final chapters detail the origins and provision of municipal housing in the years before the Second World War. This work synthesizes a large amount of material drawn from many sources, much of it published or contained in theses. This has been marshalled by the author to lead to his clearly stated conclusions concern- ing the ways and means used to provide Rhondda's housing and he shows how these varied with the passage of time. In general, the outcome was moderately successful, allowing for the constraints imposed by the steep- sided valleys; but there were some spectacular failures, the latter particularly in matters of public health. In the early period of growth, from about 1840 to 1890, it was the coal entrepreneurs who provided housing, though the self-help Building Clubs also played a significant role. The influx of workers was such that overcrowding was endemic. Wooden huts were provided by some employers and continued as homes for many years. The new stone-built houses in these early years had far more in common with their rural predecessors than with contemporary workers' dwellings elsewhere in south Wales. Curving stone stairs were the common form in Rhondda houses at a time when they were quite obsolete in other areas. Building by-laws came late to the Rhondda, being adopted as late as 1879. They did not stop the creation of numerous 'cellar-dwellings', where a lower floor (or floors) was formed beneath a separately-occupied stand- ard house and used as the home of another family. The front wall was set against, or close to, the damp hillside and proper ventilation was an impos- sibility. Housing stock of this poor quality, combined with a decline in house building in the decade of increasing economic and social uncertainty prior to the First World War, meant that the Rhondda faced a particular need for housing renewal when peace came, a need which then could be met only by the provision of municipal housing. A careful description of this process, which was constrained, as in the nineteenth century, by the terrain and by economics, concludes this survey of a century and a half of Rhondda housebuilding. The approach is a de- tached one, concentrating on the agencies and economics of housing provision rather than on the details of occupants, builders and buildings, though these are not ignored. The photographs of typical groups of houses are clear and informative, though undated, and the layout plans to various properties are helpful, though, for this reviewer, presented rather too