Once Upon a Time in Europa - John Berger

This book of his peasant trilogy looks at the period when local industrial resource extraction comes to the mountains.  It examines the moment when the younger generation abandons the hard-scrabble farming to move to low-skill industrial work or to low-level service work of the time - sales, markets etc.  You see the despair of the older generation as they age and become incapable of maintaining their small farms and livelihood.  You see the exploitation and hard labour of the unskilled factory workers.  The work is still manual - they have only their body's strength to use to earn a living.  The new work is still precarious; injuries and death happen without consequence or support for the survivors.  You see the loss of traditions and traditional knowledge.  You also see some who adapt in some way and take valued products from the wild to sell in the cities.
There is also an awareness of the environmental degradation resulting from these early, dirty extractive industries, a poisoning of the land and water.