"This is a world-shaking, belief-rattling, immensely important book. If you're an American, it is almost a patriotic duty to read it."—Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love
“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, [Reckoning at Eagle Creek] puts a human face on the industry that supplies nearly half of America’s energy…it offers a rare historical perspective on the vital yet little considered industry, along with a devastating critique of the myth of ‘clean coal.’ ”—Publishers Weekly
"Biggers offers much that’s new, especially concerning events in the coalfields of southern Illinois, where his grandfather worked in the pits, where strip mining began, where Mother Jones organized workers, and where some of our nation’s fiercest labor battles were fought."--Scott Russell Sanders, Orion Magazine
"An insightful project blending Biggers’ personal connections to his southern Illinois roots with a cutting analysis of the staggering human and environmental cost of coal mining."--Chicago Sun-Times
Check out Jeff Biggers' appearance on MSNBC All in With Chris Hayes: The Dirty Secrets of "Clean Coal."
Read an excerpt from the new Foreword to the paperback: Climate Reckoning: My Family's Coal Story
Interview on Democracy Now: As Obama Pushes "Clean Coal," Jeff Biggers Tracks History of Destructive Mining in "Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland"
Interview on American Public Media's Marketplace: Digging up the real costs of coal.
Interview on WNYC Leonard Lopate Show: Reckoning at Eagle Creek
Chicago Sun-Times: Jeff Biggers in Chicago
CSPAN Book-TV: Reckoning at Eagle Creek.
Alternet: Author's Incredible Environmental Journey After a Coal Company Destroys His Family's Ancestral Land
Illinois Times: Uncovering the history buried by King Coal
OnEarth: Digging Up Coal's Dirty Legacy
Louisville LEO Weekly: Strip-mining history
MidWest Energy News Oped: Time for Illinois to Turn Page on Coal
"...a tour de force."--Amy Goodman, Democracy Now
"Nobody writes about Appalachia like Jeff Biggers. His voice is a swirl of history and memory, of fact and analysis, of hillbilly wisdom and journalistic outrage. Reckoning at Eagle Creek is bigger and brawnier than a memoir or cultural chronicle—it’s a passionate howl from the dark heart of American coal country."—Jeff Goodell, author, Big Coal
“Jeff Biggers exposes the truth about coal in America—how the myth of “clean coal” destroys even family histories. But Biggers is a long-time warrior in another fight—to stabilize climate and preserve a good life for young people. Let us hope his message about dirty coal is read far and wide.”—James Hansen, NASA Goddard Center, author of Storms of My Grandchildren
“As this fine book makes clear, coal has always and ever been a curse, poisoning everything and everyone it touches—right up to the climate on which we depend for our daily bread. What a story!” —Bill McKibben, author of Earth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet
“[An] enriching history…An important look at the staggering human and environmental costs of mining.”—Kirkus Reviews
"Biggers is a cultural historian and it is the social strip-mining that angers him most. But seldom have the environmental and social landscapes been so well described in a single essay."--New Scientist
"Biggers, with his coal country background and authentic folk-hero style, joins a literary movement as well as a political one — the field of creative nonfiction. Like Robert Morgan in his biography “Boone,” he packs the panorama and lays claim to being transformational as well as authoritative."--Citizen Times, North Carolina
"A history that any student of coal's legacy should know."--Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"If you take away anything from the work of playwright, journalist, historian and activist Jeff Biggers, it should be this: There’s no such thing as clean coal."--Louisville LEO Weekly
"A lot of history is presented here in a personal style by a cultural historian with a keen eye. A valuable read for followers of environmental history."--Library Journal