The high cost of coal.

Most of us rail against the evils of coal without knowing much about it. Barbara Freese's brief, well-written book, Coal: A Human History (Penguin, $14) will arm you with the facts. Did you know that coal (once thought to be alive!) represents the death and burial of long extinct plant life hundreds of millions of years ago?

Freese is utterly in command of her material, and tells the story of coal with high drama. England's skies blacken as coal makes the industrial revolution possible. Coal turns Manchester and Pittsburgh into soot-covered living hells, dark at 3 p.m. Coal miners here and abroad fight a mainly losing battle for union recognition, safety and living wages.

Freese, an environmental attorney and state regulator in Minnesota, makes clear that the coal wars aren't over. Coal fired power plants burn coal because it's cheap, and the Bush administration is rolling back cleanup efforts. As a source of smog and a severe global warming aggravator, coal is still king.