Product Description

"Bringing Down the Mountains" provides insight into how mountaintop removal (MTR) surface coal mining has affected the people and the land of southern West Virginia. It examines the mechanization of the mining industry and the power relationships between coal interests, politicians, and the average citizen. "Bringing Down the Mountains" reveals how a political system married to natural-resource extraction turns a blind eye to the irrevocable disfigurement of the earth while thousands of West Virginians suffer the consequences. MTR has ruined homes, increased the risk of flooding, endangered the lives of school children, forced friends and family members out of town, and turned West Virginia's hardwood forests into moonscapes.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #437056 in Books
• Published on: 2007-09-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 248 pages

Review
"Bringing Down the Mountains is a clear and impassioned account of the devastation being visited upon the mountains of southern West Virginia by the coal industry. Read it and weep." --Denise Giardina

"Bringing Down the Mountains is one of the finest books yet regarding mountaintop removal mining and the destruction of the Appalachian culture and environment. Shirley Stewart Burns has written the most comprehensive account of the struggle that has been taking place in the coalfields of southern West Virginia and the long-term ecological and social consequences of mountaintop removal mining. It is a thoroughly researched and eloquent book that brings alive the true voices and great dignity of a courageous people." --Jack Spadaro, Former Superintendent of the National Mine Health and Safety Academy

"Everyone in America should read this important book. Shirley Stewart Burns understands this complex issue intimately and eloquently explains it from all the various angles, exposing the horrors of mountaintop removal and the way it is not only destroying the heart of a place and its people, but also affecting everyone. This is the perfect book for anyone who wants to educate themselves on this disturbing, irresponsible, and disrespectful form of Big Business gone awry." --Silas House, author of Clay's Quilt and Coal Tattoo

About the Author
Shirley Stewart Burns holds a B.S. in news editorial journalism, a master's degree in social work, and a Ph.D. in history, with an Appalachian focus, from West Virginia University. A native of Wyoming County in the southern West Virginia coalfields and the daughter of an underground coal miner, she has a passionate interest in the communities, environment, and histories of the southern West Virginia coalfields. Shirley Stewart Burns lives in Charleston, West Virginia.

Customer Reviews

Intellectual Watershed: Socially and Politically Important Book
One of the most important books WVU Press has published to date is Bringing Down the Mountains, by Shirley Stewart Burns. This book documents the effects of mountaintop removal on human communities and is the best study to date. The author focuses in detail--with rigor of mind and fidelity of heart--on the human impact of moutaintop removal. MTR may as well be called "extractive desertification," both in ecological and sociological terms.

This book is already having an impact and is serving to link more and more voices around the most compelling criticisms of MTR. The author is the daughter of a coal miner and knows first hand what devastation this practice wreaks: like me, her hometown is being encroached upon by one of these sites.

Mountaintop removal is not coal mining and it does not participate in that cultural legacy. Those who work these sites are excavators, and their employment is short.

If you care about Appalachia, the most diverse temperate forests in the world, a major source of water, or the impact of globalism, read this book.

The truth they never wanted you to know about!
I bought this book the day it hit the market and have read it twice. Dr. Burns lays out the case against mountaintop removal as only a native of southern West Virginia could. If everyone read this book the nation would finally understand the horror that is mountaintop removal, and take action to halt the practice. This is without doubt the authoratative academic work on this subject!

A must read for 2008 and beyond
I personally know the author, Shirley Stewart Burns, and knew that the caliber of this story would be of the highest order. I was not surprised when I read it, and her emotional connection to the story and in particular the small mining communities of West Virginia shines through from start to finish. This is a story that should be read by all, as it highlights the power of the people and the ever increasing need for communities to rally behind a cause.
I congratulate Dr Burns on a wonderful, thought provoking and personally touching account. Even from the southern hemisphere where I am living, stories like this are relevant, and a number of my environmental friends have shown an interest in reading it.