*****
An eight-year-old stands in the dark at three o'clock in the morning. She is in solitude and silence. She is chained and harnessed like a dog. Too frightened even to sing to herself, she stands there. Is this the work of a fiction writer? No, sadly she really existed and was working in an 18th century coal mine, in which her job is to operate trap doors to prevent the accumulation of deadly gases, for 12 hours a day. If you are as shocked by that as I was, you would love Coal: a Human History.
This book tells the compelling history of the black stone that has shaped civilization into what it is today. The story starts in the carboniferous age, in which the coal we use today was in its original form of the leaves of monstrous plants called Lepidodendrons. The story ends in the present, with the tolls that coal is taking on our environment.
This is a well put together review. It looks very interesting I will probably read it someday. I like how you start off asking questions like,"Is this the work of a fiction writer"?
ReplyDelete