Coal

A Human History

By: Barbara Freese

Narrated by: Shelly Frasier

Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

The fascinating, often surprising story of how a simple black rock altered the course of history. Prized as "the best stone in Britain" by Roman invaders who carved jewelry out of it, coal has transformed societies, powered navies, fueled economies, and expanded frontiers. It made China a twelfth-century superpower, inspired the writing of the Communist Manifesto, and helped the northern states win the American Civil War.

Yet the mundane mineral that built our global economy, and even today powers our electrical plants, has also caused death, disease, and environmental destruction. As early as 1306, King Edward I tried to ban coal (unsuccessfully) because its smoke became so obnoxious. Its recent identification as a primary cause of global warming has made it a cause celebre of a new kind.

In this remarkable book, Barbara Freese takes us on a rich historical journey that begins three hundred million years ago and spans the globe. From the "Great Stinking Fogs" of London to the rat-infested coal mines of Pennsylvania, from the impoverished slums of Manchester to the toxic city streets of Beijing, Coal is a captivating narrative about an ordinary substance that has done extraordinary things a simple black rock that could well determine our fate as a species.

©2003 Barbara Freese (P)2003 Tantor Media, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Engrossing and sometimes stunning...[a] strongly argued and thoroughly researched book... Coal, to borrow a phrase, is king." (New York Times Book Review)
"Freese's writing is a bit like coal: smooth and glinting, burning with a steady warmth...An intriguing, cautionary tale." (Kirkus Reviews)

Excellent on many levels

From the Carboniferous to the present. A thoughtful look at our relationship with the substance that brought us into the modern age but has a potentially disastrous downside. A wonderful social, scientific, and technological history. Great book for young adults too.

fascinating!

A great history on coal and the world's use of it. easy to listen to narrator.

About 1/2 good, 1/2 not so good

There are some great parts, such as the history of coal in the UK, US, and China and its role in social history. However, I found it lacking in other areas of coal history I've read about in other books. Notably, Daniel Yergin's _The Prize_ discusses how WW1 was shaped by oil and coal use and how Nazi Germany used coal-to-liquids fuels produced in slave factories attached to concentration camps to compensate for oil shortages. These facts and South Africa's history of subsidizing coal fuels seem critical to understanding modern coal economics and lobbying. However, the book instead presents a litany of air pollution and climate problems with coal, which applies to pretty much all fossil fuels -- I've heard similar material before in now-countless newspapers and books. As a result, this large part of the book seems to me more like polemic than erudition. Overall, I'd say I learned something new from about 45-50% of the book, with not much new in the rest of it. Really, the book's more a persuasion piece, and I was looking for a lot more new information when I invested the listening time.

Excellent

Weaves technological, military, medical, political, labor and environmental history into a very cogent story. First rate! The narration and sound quality are excellent too.

Good but incomplete

A nice story about all that is good and bad about coal. But a major piece of coal history was only glanced over. Coal is truly a gift of nature 300 million years in the making. In addition to its obvious use as a fuel, it was the investigation and exploitation of the many complex organic compounds within coal that changed the world. The whole process and production of coal gas and the use of coal tar was only glanced upon in this book. I was hoping for more discussion about the chemistry. The synthetic dye industry and the growth of the British and German chemical industries are all tied to coal. The field of organic chemistry has its foundations in coal. Modern medicine from the development of carbolic acid to the first antibiotics, can trace their origins to coal. 200 years ago people took those black rocks and started to unlock the many mysteries and magical things held within and we are all beneficiaries of those discoveries.

Uses Coal to push her Political Agenda

This is really a book about global warming. The author is a lawyer for a state environmental regulatory body and gets interested in coal because of a case she worked on. She writes very interesting historical summaries of coal use in England, the US, and China. I agree with another reviewer that she lacks expertise on this topic and that her sources are vague and insubstantial.

She also lacks judgement and logic. She early on shows her hand with the statement that climate change is primarily caused by fossil fuels we burn". This is simply not true. The global climate is influenced in part by this, but her simplistic idea that we can stop global warming by dropping fossil fuels is unscientific. The planet has been a lot warmer in the past; solar activity over which we have no control effects climate etc.

She has a childike faith in the Kyoto Protocol, which (she does not mention) Pres. Clinton never even submitted to the Senate, even though his VP negotiated it. Many people object to Kyoto because it exempts China, India, and other nations, which might then attract jobs away from the regulated countries. Her answer is that the treaty does not say these jobs will leave the US. Such logic is staggering.

She also lacks judgment. She complains that the coal industry--unlike high tech--is controlled by large conglomerates, and also that US coal use is increasing. Yet she never stops to ask why these this is the case. Is the answer because of the very kind of environmental regulation she is such an advocate of?

She also seems to have a strange tolerance for Chinese pollution, saying that they are entitled to pollute their way to wealth, just as we did (it's only fair); meanwhile she bemoans global warming. She excitedly cites stats showing their pollution is now 3x over the limit, down from 4x.

In sum, the historical parts are interesting; the narration great; the author's apocalyptic agenda tedious.

Coal: a Human History

Author Barbara Freese was intrigued by the subject of coal and passed her interest on to us in this book of the history of coal and how it effected the course of human history. I couldn't put it down!

Interesting

This was a revealing, insightful book that was well narrated. The subject makes it hard to listen to but the narration along with the content made it a compelling listen.

Spectacular Sweep of a Much Obscured Subject

From Anthracite Coal Patches I lived the anthracite culture in blind ignorance of its meaning. Spledidly narrated, rich in history, I am informed in depth by every episode to now better understand who I am and how my family endured. Most interesting was the bit of coverage of the miners, their families and personalities histrically involved.

Boring

This is a ponderous account about COAL and its effect on the environment - not about the people who were impacted by it. Judging from the cover, I though I would learn about the human beings who worked in the mines - not about a black piece of rock. The cover should have had a piece of coal with a baseball hat on backwards and a heavy gold chain around its neck saying "Coal Rules". If you have a term paper about coal, just coal, and nothing else but coal, this is your resource.