Thunder on the Mountain: Death at Massey and the Dirty Secrets Behind Big Coal

Although this book purports to be about the Upper Big Branch (UBB) mine disaster that killed twenty-nine miners in 2006, it actually reads more like a collection of essays that are loosely related to one another that deal with topics ranging from Massey Energy (the owner of the UBB mine at the time of the explosion), a biography of Don Blankenship (CEO of Massey Energy at the time of the explosion), Mongolia's coal fields and the international demand for coal, and the fact that the US government does practically nothing to regulate the coal industry. The UBB disaster has little page time.

The book doesn't feel particularly well-written, and it badly needed an editor. There are numerous gaffes, typos, and rehashing of material that was show more discussed in previous chapters. For example, this gem appears on page 144: "[Ollie Combs] told me in 1997 for a Business-Week article...Combs, who died in 1991 at the age of eighty-seven, was the exception..." So, how did someone who supposedly died in 1991 give him an interview in 1997? Did he hold a seance? (Actually, the Widow Combs died in 1993, not 1991, at the age of 88, not 87.) Did anyone bother fact-checking this book? And how am I supposed to trust anything this book says when such obvious errors are allowed through?

I would recommend "Lost Mountain" by Erik Reese for anyone interested in the effects of strip- and mountain-top mining in Appalachia over this book. As for those interested in the UBB disaster, an internet search would yield more information. show less

Big Coal, as ugly, corrupt, and criminal as can be.