Coal: a Human History

Coal: A Human History was written by Barbara Freese to focus on the history of coal and how mankind has used it as part of their lifestyle. Ever since the times when early nomads used the slash-and-burn method, coal has been around acting as jewelry for the Romans and as fuel for peasants and the noble class in Britain. Coal was in such high demand that many inventions were utilized for the convenience of retrieving it from intolerable conditions such as vacuums and the construction of more efficient underground tunnels. The book gives insight of how this small stone has been so vital to humans that they were able to adapt to the ways coal best functions.
Freese wrote this non-fiction book to inform how coal has affected humans socially, economically, and medically. As an Assistant Attorney General of Minnesota she has helped enforce the major pollution laws of her state. Freese suppose that the public need to know how to contain themselves and use coal in moderation, unlike our prior generations. It is thought by Freese that if humankind continues to act greedy with coal, the planet will only continue to get abused by the actions of humans. The book explains in vast detail how a greasy lump of fertilized plant and soil has given many opportunities for human growth to prosper. Offering heat as an energy source, coal has made a lasting impression on what humans are today. It is stated in the book that without the use of coal many inventions would not be around due to the facilitation of its connection to coal and life today would be most certainly different.
As humans first discovered coal, like every other commodity on Earth, there had to be experiments before the best use for it was found. Freese illustrates the introduction of coal and the great lengths human civilization went trough to find this use. While the Romans named the stone Britain’s Best Stone, they used it to carve jewelry from it. The use of expensive jewelry soon lost its value due to mass