Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland »

Jeff Biggers has worked as a writer, educator, policy analyst, and radio correspondent across the United States, Europe, India, and Mexico. His award-winning stories have appeared on NPR, PRI, and in scores of magazines and national newspapers. His work has won numerous honors, including an American Book Award, Lowell Thomas Award for Travel Journalism, and Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Award. He lives in southern Illinois.

A harrowing historical journey, a poignant family memoir, and a cautionary prologue to today’s misguided dependence and support of “clean coal”

Publishers Weekly

Journalist Biggers tallies up the human cost of more than two centuries of coal mining in southern Illinois in an intimate, informative yet uneven book. Part historical narrative, part family memoir, part pastoral paean, and part jeremiad against the abuse of the land and of the men who gave and continue to give their lives to (and often for) the mines, the book puts a human face on the industry that supplies nearly half of America’s energy. Biggers excavates the history beneath the homestead at Eagle Creek where his family lived for eight generations. The displacement of the indigenous Shawnee, the hidden legacy of slavery, the bitter and bloody conflicts between miners and their bosses, and the environmental devastation wrought by the mines are detailed as part and parcel of the region’s coal-mining history—a history obliterated along with the mountaintops and clean streams scraped away by the miners’ steam shovels. Written in a personal and poetic style, the book suffers from poor organization, but it offers a rare historical perspective on the vital yet little considered industry, along with a devastating critique of the myth of “clean coal.” (Feb.)

Prologue: In Coal Blood

Introduction Mr. President, Welcome to the Saudi Arabia of Coal 1

Ch. 1 4-5 Hours: The Choices We Made 13

Ch. 2 In the Name of the Shawnee: Removing the Earth's Liver 41

Ch. 3 Black Diamonds, Black Lives: The Entangled Roots of Slavery and Coal 91

Ch. 4 Who Killed the Miners? The Anatomy of Denial 131

Ch. 5 Black Waters, Black Waters: The Murder of Little Egypt 183

Ch. 6 The Short Swift Time of Clean Coal on Earth: Dirty Coal Has Left the Building 221

Epilogue: The Last Eagle Creekers 261

Coalfield and Climate Change Resources and Organizations 267

Bibliography 269

Acknowledgments 285

Index 289