- Paperback: 320 pages
- Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics); Reprint edition (Jan 27 2004)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0142000981
- ISBN-13: 978-0142000984
- Product Dimensions: 18.7 x 12.8 x 1.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 181 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #420,441 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Coal has been both lauded for its efficiency as a heating fuel and maligned for the lung-wrenching black smoke it gives off. In her first book, Freese, an assistant attorney general of Minnesota (where she helps enforce environmental laws), offers an exquisite chronicle of the rise and fall of this bituminous black mineral. Both the Romans and the Chinese used coal ornamentally long before they discovered its flammable properties. Once its use as a heating source was discovered in early Roman Britain, coal replaced wood as Britain's primary energy source. The jet-black mineral spurred the Industrial Revolution and inspired the invention of the steam engine and the railway. Freese narrates the discovery of coal in the colonies, the development of the first U.S. coal town, Pittsburgh, and the history of coal in China. Despite its allure as a cheap and warm energy source, coal carries a high environmental cost. Burning it produces sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide in such quantities that, during the Clinton administration, the EPA targeted coal-burning power plants as the single worst air polluters. Using EPA studies, Freese shows that coal emissions kill about 30,000 people a year, causing nearly as many deaths as traffic accidents and more than homicides and AIDS. The author contends that alternate energy sources must be found to ensure a healthier environment for future generations. Part history and part environmental argument, Freese's elegant book teaches an important lesson about the interdependence of humans and their natural environment both for good and ill throughout history.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Booklist
Deleterious to health and beneficial to wealth, coal contains a tension that makes its story a compelling one. Freese is a former attorney general of Minnesota, who became interested in the flammable rock's history during her tenure. After a routine description of coal's geological formation, Freese invigorates her narrative with its combustion in England. Even in the 1500s, its noxiousness provoked denunciation, but with Britannia's forests all but consumed, it became everybody's heat source. Freese is quite succinct in describing coal's critical role in sparking the Industrial Revolution, whose side effects included a troglodytic existence for miners and suffocating fogs for Manchester and London. The author then covers America's seduction by coal, and presently China's, culminating with her advocating reduction of coal's primary pollutants, sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide, and its ultimate banishment as an energy source. Freese's combination of labor and technological history is fluid and evenhanded; she is a solid inductee into the popular club of "biographers" of materials such as salt (Mark Kurlansky) and water (Philip Ball). Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Well balanced book,
By
This review is from: Coal: A Human History (Hardcover)
A very good account of the history of coal, The author explains the basics, the different types of coal and how they are formed, The book progresses onto early societies and their treatment of the "burning stones". As can be expected the major part of the book is about the industrial revolution and the struggle of cities such as London and Pittsburg to maintain a habital city..The coal industry became "King Coal" and became the industrial lifeblood in many countries. A vital industry over which industrial sectors were formed and labor rights were gained. The Final chapters of the book deal with the pollution problems brought on by the burning coal. Two serious points are brought up;1) Society can engineer away most of the pollution problems to the point where coal approaches almost perfect combustion. It will result in a much higher cost to utilize coal, and perfect combustion will still leave us with a massive Carbon dioxide output problem. Perhaps accelerating the global warming scenarios 2)The China question, as a large developing nation China is also heavily dependent on coal as a cheap and readily available energy source, and because of China's scarce resources it applies minimal polution control. This combination does not bode well for the future. This reader thought the material was presented in a very professional manner. It was not a "the sky is falling" type of book. It is in fact a good book to obtain a balanced view. It explains how humans have lived with coal in the past and states that societies may have major decisions to make in the future.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Coal: The High Cost of the Good Life,
By John Wood (San Miguel de Allende, Gto., Mexico) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Coal: A Human History (Hardcover)
On the bookshelf, COAL: A HUMAN HISTORY promises to be another informative, fascinating study of a common substance along the lines of Mark Kurlansky's SALT: A WORLD HISTORY, and his delightful COD: A BIOGRAPHY OF THE FISH THAT CHANGED THE WORLD. But a rude awakening awaits the unprepared reader. We learn that the blessings of coal decidedly have been mixed.Freese's exhaustively-researched and authoritative book informs of the problems coal has caused from the time of its earliest use: In thirteenth-century London, efforts already were being made to deal with polluting coal smoke. Coal-related disease in the 19th century reduced lifespans, increased infant mortality and caused debilitating disease. Coal miners traded away their full lifespans for their jobs. Freese's descriptions of child labor abuses are appalling. More than a dozen photographs and illustrations effectively support the text: The photographs of ruined children are heartbreaking. Nor are the social costs neglected. For much of coal mining history, miners were serfs in effect if not in fact. Brutal suppression of miners' strikes, routine at the time the occurred, would not be tolerated today. Given little emphasis is the role of coal in building the modern world, and in particular, western society. Coal fueled the Industrial Revolution in England, leading to world domination by English-speaking peoples. Our wealthy society and high standard of living was built on cheap energy, primarily dervied from hydrocarbons. Right or wrong, the role of coal in creating our modern way of life, lightly treated here, warrants deeper exploration. In the end, Freese documents the terrible threat to our environment posed by modern-day coal-burning. It's painful to read yet another description of the over-use and destruction of our planet, particularly one that comes close to being strident. But read it we must if we are to change course before it's too late. Filled with fascinating detail and revelations, COAL: A HUMAN HISTORY is a compelling book. Highly recommended.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Coaldust,
By "roofaxe" (Silver Lake, Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Coal: A Human History (Paperback)
Freese does a middling job with Coal: A Human History. The first part was well-written, certainly well-researched, and included many interesting facts about coal. The text takes a tangent in the latter half, however. Her critique is really an unsuccessful attempt to explore the effects of coal to contemporary material and cultural history - which is implied in her title. For example, when earlier she shares historical quotes of the sublime quality of coal fogs in urban areas and its modern allure, later she critiques its negative environmental impacts without engaging these earlier anecdotes - there's a troubling disconnect in her analysis between past and present. Freese has spliced a valid contemporary environmental critique onto a strong historical look at the effects of our relationship to coal on cultural and industrial development. I should direct my critique at her editors because she is an excellent writer and supports her theses well. I believe readers would be better served with two pieces - a more fully explored environmental history of coal, and a follow-up companion treatise on the contemporary situation.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
|
Most recent customer reviews |
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Business & Investing > Economics > Natural Resources
- Books > History > Ancient > Early Civilization
- Books > Nonfiction > Economics > Natural Resources
- Books > Outdoors & Nature > Natural Resources
- Books > Professional & Technical > Accounting & Finance > Economics > Natural Resources
- Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Earth Sciences > Geology
- Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Physics > Energy
- Books > Science > Earth Sciences > Geology
- Books > Science > Earth Sciences > Mineralogy
- Books > Science > Nature & Ecology > Natural Resources
- Books > Science > Physics > Energy
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
