Coal: A Human History

About this book

In this remarkable book, Barbara Freese takes us on a rich historical journey that begins hundreds of millions of years ago and spans the globe. Prized as the best stone in Britain by Roman invaders who carved jewelry out of it, coal has transformed societies, launched empires, and expanded frontiers. It made China an eleventh-century superpower, inspired the Communist Manifesto, and helped the North win the American Civil War. Yet coal's transformative power has come at tremendous cost, from the blackening of our lungs and skies, to the perils of mining, to global warming.

Now updated with a new chapter describing the high-stakes conflict between coal's defenders and those working to preserve a livable climate, Coal: A Human History offers a captivating history of the mineral that helped build the modern world but now endangers our future.

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Biography

Barbara Freese was Assistant District Attorney in Michigan, one of America's biggest coal producing states, for 12 years and is an expert on air pollution laws. Coal is her first book. She lives in St. Paul, Michigan with her husband and two children.