An enthralling journey, across time and across continents, using the fascination with coal and the crucial need for it as a way of approaching some of the most fundamental questions of human existence.

'A passionate plea for a more considered way of treating the earth, its resources and its inhabitants' DAILY TELEGRAPH
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Coal has transformed societies and shaped the fate of nations. It launched empires and triggered wars. Above all, it fuelled the Industrial Revolution in Britain, propelling the rise of a small rural kingdom into the greatest commercial empire in the world.

Taking us on a rich historical journey that begins on the banks of the river Tyne, Barbara Freese explores the profound role coal has played in human history and continues to play in todays world. The first half of the book is set in Britain and tells how coal transformed Britain and ushered in the industrial age. The rest of the book looks at America and China, at the birth of the unions and the closing of the mines, and at the energy industry today. With oil prices on the rise and no end in sight to our insatiable appetite for energy, the world is turning again to coal.
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'Elegant and engaging . . . No subject is more important for understanding the recent past, and preparing for the future.' SUNDAY TIMES

'The incredible story of Britain's black goal.' DAILY MAIL

'Eloquent . . . unsparing . . . The relation between carbon and climate change has seldom been so clearly and readably explained.' SCOTSMAN

'As much about the growing scientific evidence of the damage coal causes to the environment as it is about the social history of the Industrial Revolution.' FINANCIAL TIMES

'An absorbing book that never loses its grip.' NEW SCIENTIST

'Fascinating . . . It lingers hauntingly in the mind.' NEW STATESMAN

'As this human history of coal makes clear, there are no easy answers. . . A welcome contribution to the search for a sustainable energy economy.' NATURAL HISTORY

'Coal, while it fairly acknowledges what the substance has done for people, devotes its more swashbuckling passages to describing what it has done to them' NEW YORK TIMES BOOKS REVIEW