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Title: Coal: A Human History by Barbara Freese, Shelly Frasier ISBN: 1-4001-0087-9 Publisher: Tantor Media Inc. Pub. Date: 01 May, 2003 Format: Audio CD Volumes: 7 List Price(USD): $39.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.12 (16 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Just Another Jerremiad
Comment: This book is not so much about coal, as it is about the environmental issues surrounding its use. I would have thought, though, that even a book of this sort would provide at least some of the basics of coal chemistry, giving some information on the chemical nature and reactions of coal, and the number of Joules per kg, perhaps. If you are looking for information of that sort, pass this jeremiad on by. Its approach is that you don't need to understand a technology in order to appreciate or regulate it.
The book starts pretty well, giving some highlights of the history of coal's critical contributions to the industrial revolution, some of which will appeal even to those only tangentially concerned about the history of technology and how our present world came to be. The tale of the resistance of Londoners to the use of more efficient stoves over the smoky fireplace with its visual appeal, now superseded by the TV, was fine to read.
Sorrowfully, there is not a word about the men who invented and developed the cast iron stove. The trials and tribulations of the men who enabled the transition of charcoal to coal in the production of iron is not to be found here. The important development of the coal-gas light, though described briefly, also totally neglects the chemistry, the men behind it and their heroic struggles. The production of coke is briefly described, but there is not even the briefest mention of the coal tar and the role it played in the development of the chemical industry. Although the transition of wood to coal burning locomotives is covered, the epical transition to the diesel is nowhere described. The properties and uses of the ash produced when coal is burned is also essentially ignored in this essay of environmental fantasies.
The book does have for much of its length, a preoccupation with the smoke generated by burning coal, its noxiousness, and its mentions in the novels and memoirs of the times. But where is the discussion of the characteristics of smoke, its particle size and densities, its variance with the type of coal and how it is burned? Neglected again. The possibility of the conversion of coal to a liquid petroleum-like fuel, and the enormous amount of research surrounding this possibility is likewise unknown to this author. Long wall mining techniques which have done so much to improve mine safety is not worth a mention either.
The author, an environmental solicitor and pleader, vaguely, feebly, and predictably argues for the complete replacement of coal by "renewable resources" such as solar power and windmills or something. Nuclear power is, in keeping with the usual dogma, dismissed in a sentence or two. The influence of this sort of discourse, while dominant for now among the media mongers and uplifters, will have little impact on our energy future. Our civilization, born in Northern Europe, has a record of steady and continuous improvement, and has a future that will be again filled with surprises and glories through the efforts of heroic engineers.
Rating: 5
Summary: A history of soot, smoke, and power
Comment: Barbara Freese's book has it all. It's about an important topic and it's very easy to read. The first few chapters deal with the discovery of coal as fuel, the pollution that resulted, the use of coal to run the British empire, and how coal was dug out of the ground. She describes the industrial revolution, noting that Thomas Newcomen invented the steam engine, not James Watt. (Although Watt did make important improvements.)
Then she switches over to the US. She describes the coal-mining regions of the Appalachians and the two types of coal. (One burns easier but is dirtier than the other.)
Pollution is a key part of the story throughout these chapters. That sets up the final third of the book: coal mining gets automated, alternative fuels are introduced, and the environmental impact of pollution is described.
If this is your first book on coal, pollution, or fossil fuel, it won't be your last. Barbara Freese makes the topic very interesting. She whets your appetite for more.
Rating: 3
Summary: Coaldust
Comment: 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.
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Title: Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky ISBN: 0142001619 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 28 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Tobacco: A Cultural History of How an Exotic Plant Seduced Civilization by Iain Gately ISBN: 0802139604 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: February, 2003 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky ISBN: 0140275010 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: January, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Frozen-Water Trade: A True Story by Gavin Weightman ISBN: 078686740X Publisher: Hyperion Press Pub. Date: 08 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: The Potato : How the Humble Spud Rescued the Western World by Larry Zuckerman ISBN: 0865475784 Publisher: North Point Press Pub. Date: 25 October, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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