Mass Destruction
The Men and Giant Mines That Wired America and Scarred the Planet
Mass destruction mining soon spread around the nation and the globe, providing raw materials essential to the mass production and mass consumption that increasingly defined the emerging "American way of life." At the dawn of the last century, Jackling's open pit replaced immense but constricted underground mines that probed nearly a mile beneath the earth, to become the ultimate symbol of the modern faith that science and technology could overcome all natural limits. A new culture of mass destruction emerged that promised nearly infinite supplies not only of copper, but also of coal, timber, fish, and other natural resources.
But, what were the consequences? Timothy J. LeCain deftly analyzes how open-pit mining continues to affect the environment in its ongoing devastation of nature and commodification of the physical world. The nation's largest toxic Superfund site would be one effect, as well as other types of environmental dead zones around the globe. Yet today, as the world's population races toward American levels of resource consumption, truly viable alternatives to the technology of mass destruction have not yet emerged.
Written in a clear, straightforward style, Mass Destruction focuses our attention on the mining of copper—an industry both essential to the electrical age and ruinous to theenvironment. In so doing, LeCain shows the interconnections between the natural world of raw materials and the human world of technologies and commodities.
The colossal open-pit mines of the past century have left behind some of the largest artifacts on the face of the earth. Timothy LeCain's engaging history of this mega-industrial enterprise is remarkable for its insight, clarity, and wisdom. Readers interested in the contours of our technological and environmental past—and the inextricable connections between the natural and artificial—will find Mass Destruction a treasure trove of reasoning and enlightenment.
This is an eloquent and searing portrait of the environmental cost of the coins in our pockets and wires in our walls. As Timothy LeCain argues in this hard-hitting book, the quest for efficiency that gave us mass production and mass consumption also brought us mass destruction of the environment.
In examining the history of one mining industry, LeCain funnels a great deal of American history and culture into his narrative, resulting in a work that should catch a broad audience, from Old West history buffs to environmentalists.
A most entertaining and informative book.
LeCain writes skillfully and eloquently about the history, the engineering challenges, the successes of production and resulting consumption, and the environmental consequences of open-pit copper mining, mainly in the first half of the 20th century. With clarity and reason, LeCain analyzes this undeniable and inextricable connection between the technology of producing nature's raw materials and human and environmental imperatives. This book provokes serious second thoughts about the future of the exploitation of nature's bounty, and it should appeal to a wide audience, especially modern resource companies and conservationists. Highly recommended.
Timothy LeCain analyzes the environmental impact of open pit mining, including its ongoing devastation of nature. Both a historical chronology of the open pit mining industry in the western U.S. and a thoughtful essay on the economic drivers behind it, LeCain provides a compelling story.
Mass Destruction is a thoroughly researched, elegantly reasoned study by one well-qualified to do so. LeCain has provided a well-integrated look at the environmental cost of America's burgeoning consumerism, with specific emphasis on copper.
Acknowledgments
In the Lands of Mass Destruction
Between the Heavens and the Earth
The Stack
Mass Destruction
The Dead Zones
Epilogue: From New Delhi to the New West
Notes
Index
