Lost Mountain : A Year in the Vanishing Wilderness Radical Strip Mining and the Devastation Ofappalachia

The mountains of Appalachia are home to one of the oldest and most diverse ecosystems in North America. But they are also host to the mother lode of American coal, and a new form of strip mining has created a state of emergency for the Appalachian wilderness and the communities that depend on it. In powerful, stirring prose Erik Reece chronicles the year he spent witnessing the systematic decimation of a single mountain, exposing how issues of corporate hubris, government neglect, and class conflict have all contributed to the crisis. Lost Mountain is a landmark defense of a natural treasure, a core part of our national identity threatened with extinction. Book jacket.

Erik Reece is a writer in residence at the University of Kentucky. His work appears in The New York Times, Harper's, The Nation, Orion, and The Oxford American, among other publications.