Crude Reality: Petroleum in World History by Brian C. Black (review)
In: Journal of world history: official journal of the World History Association, Volume 24, Issue 3, p. 699-701
ISSN: 1527-8050
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In: Journal of world history: official journal of the World History Association, Volume 24, Issue 3, p. 699-701
ISSN: 1527-8050
Over the past five hundred years, North Americans have increasingly relied on mining to produce much of their material and cultural life. From cell phones and computers to cars, roads, pipes, pans, and even wall tile, mineral-intensive products have become central to North American societies. As this process has unfolded, mining has also indelibly shaped the natural world and the human societies within it. Mountains have been honeycombed, rivers poisoned, forests leveled, and the consequences of these environmental transformations have fallen unevenly across North America. Drawing on the work of scholars from Mexico, the United States, and Canada, Mining North America examines these developments. It covers an array of minerals and geographies while bringing mining into the core debates that animate North American environmental history. Taken all together, the essays in this book make a powerful case for the centrality of mining in forging North American environments and societies