Coal River
 | Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008, Kindle Edition Customer Rating: 13 reviews Recommend |
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One of America’s most dramatic environmental battles is unfolding in southern West Virginia. Coal companies are blasting the mountains, decapitating them for coal. The forested ridge tops and valley streams of Appalachia—one of the country’s natural treasures—are being destroyed, along with towns and communities. An entire culture is disappearing, and to this day, most Americans have no idea it’s happening. Michael Shnayerson first traveled to the coal fields four years ago, on assignment for Vanity Fair. There he met an inspiring young lawyer named Joe Lovett, who was fighting mountaintop removal in court with a series of brilliant and daring lawsuits. He also met Judy Bonds, whose grassroots group, the Coal River Mountain Watch, was speaking out in a region where talking truth to power was both brave and dangerous. The two had joined forces to take on Massey Energy, the largest and most aggressive of the coal companies, and its swaggering, notorious chairman, Don Blankenship. Coal River is Shnayerson’s account of this dramatic struggle. From courtroom to boardroom, forest clearing to factory floor, Shnayerson gives us a novelistic and compelling portrait of the people who risked their reputations and livelihoods in the fight against King Coal.
Title: Coal River
Sales Rank: 33405 in Books
Author: Michael Shnayerson
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1st edition, 2008-01-08, Kindle Edition, 336 pages
- Excellent and Gripping
- Amazing book. It's very heartening to see that the work of a few concerned people in Appalacia made a difference. This book really illustrated the battle between the people and Massey Energy. Really opened my eyes to the disgusting corporate greed displayed by this company. With coal and oil companies making billions in profit, is it worth destroying land, sickening children,… More reviews
- Noise which dilutes legitimate discourse about damage to Appalachia
- As a committed conservationist, I really, really want to give Coal River a positive review. No can do. I tend to simplify (oversimplify?) the issues in a case. In that vein, I have carefully distilled the teaching of Coal River.:
1 - Mountaintop removal/valley fill mining (in the industry, MTM/VF) is raping Mother West Virginia. God is angry. (By the book's third sentence, we see such… More reviews
- Coal Rver tells the truth
- I just finished reading Michael Schnayerson's Coal River. Wow! What an exposé! This work of nonfiction reads almost like a novel. The cast of characters is headed by the hulking, somewhat reclusive, brilliant, but sadistically insane Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy. Blankenship's egotistic darkness is opposed by an army of soldiers of the light, whose efforts to offset the workings of the unholy prince… More reviews
- hard to put down
- The pace of this book is as fast and compulsive as a wicked thriller, but the story happens to be completely true. Shnayerson is a natural spinner and he totally delivers the goods with this tale of good versus evil. The bad guy is the morally autistic coal baron, Don Blankenship, recently selected by Old Trout magazine as the "seventh scariest person in America." He even… More reviews
- Fascinating but depressing too
- This book is very well written and is an easy read. I was surprised that other than the cover photo, there are no photographs in the book documenting the horrific rape of the environment. The EPA, gutted by Bush, the state governors, senators and congressmen of WV and Tenn, and the Corps of Engineers should all be ashamed of their complicity in allowing this… More reviews
