Rebecca’s Country : A Welsh Story of Riot and Resistance

Author: Jones, Rhian E.

Southwest Wales

Published on 10 October 2024 by UNIVERSITY OF WALES PRESS (Calon) in the United Kingdom.

Hardback | 256 pages, Not illustrated
146 x 224 x 32 | 506g

In nineteenth-century Wales, a protest took place like no other. Burdened by punishing tolls and desperate for their livelihoods, protestors dramatically cross-dressed in carnivalesque costumes to attack the tollbooths. Inspired by the enigmatic figure of ‘Rebecca’, they went on to attack other symbols of injustice, redistribute wealth, and clash with both local authorities and the national government.

In Rebecca’s Country, historian Rhian E. Jones explores the background, chronology and achievements of the Rebecca movement. She offers a glimpse into the lives of ordinary people and how they responded to the sweeping and severe changes of the early nineteenth century, telling the human stories behind this dramatic history.