Kent "Kip" Curtis teaches history at The Ohio State University. http://history.osu.edu/directory/curtis457
"Occasionally a book is published that has significance far beyond
its apparent subject; it illumines a vast landscape, opening
unexpected vistas and bridging unexplored lacunae. Such is the case
with Gambling on Ore. . . . This book is not just a history of
American mining, it is a book that mines American history. It
deserves the widest possible reading."
--James J. Rawls, The Journal of American History "Curtis plunges
into the deep mining pits of Montana and finds a profound story
about modern America and its relationship to the earth through
extracting metal. It is a brilliant and yet moving story of people
exploring and organizing, digging and polluting, to create our
modern way of life. The writing is outstanding, the analysis is
challenging, and the significance could not be greater."
--Donald Worster, author of A Passion for Nature: The Life of John
Muir "In this important book, Kent Curtis reveals that much of our
current economic insanity began a century ago when a handful of
gigantic corporations transformed America into a 'mining nation.'
Today, when reckless corporate risk-taking seems to be the new
normal, the message of Gambling on Ore could hardly be more
profound and timely."
--Timothy James LeCain, author of Mass Destruction: The Men and
Giant Mines That Wired America and Scarred the Planet "Gambling on
Ore is a powerful reinterpretation of western mining as an
uncertain human relationship with the natural world and, at the
same time, a necessary and foundational activity at the heart of a
modern technological society-a mining society-dependent on metals
and all of the technologies they make possible. Focused on gold,
silver, and copper extraction in Montana, this compelling and
beautifully written narrative weaves together the history of
engineering and technology with environmental, business, and legal
history to reveal how the unpredictable distribution of metals in
the earth, and the economic, social, and physical structures
Americans created to buffer those uncertainties, profoundly shaped
the twentieth century and left powerful legacies that continue to
transform local and global environments. No reader will think about
mining in quite the same way again."
--Kathryn Morse, Middlebury College, author of The Nature of Gold:
An Environmental History of the Klondike Gold Rush "A century of
copper mining and smelting in Montana has left an ecological
wasteland marked by arsenic poisoning, toxic lakes, and
mountaintops scraped into rivers. Kip Curtis's provocative Gambling
on Ore helps us understand how uncertainty was at the core of such
mining practices. Beautifully written, Gambling on Ore offers a new
approach to the environmental history of mining in the American
West."
--Nancy Langston, author of Toxic Bodies: Hormone Disruptors and
the Legacy of DES "This is a very well-written, well-argued, and
thought-provoking book. . . . Highly recommended."
--T. S. Reynolds, Choice "Curtis's powerful analysis and wide
contextual range should make this book appeal to a large audience
of scholars in environmental history and the history of the
American West, and its length, readability, and breadth of
interpretation would make it valuable in graduate seminars in both
areas. His innovative take on Montana's mining heritage should
justify its addition to the library of anyone interested in the
state's history. I hope this deserving book is read widely."
--Eric C. Nystrom, Montana The Magazine of Western History
"[E]ngagingly written and thoughtfully researched text offers a
nuanced examination of changing social, legal and political
understandings of natural resource ownership and use in an
increasingly urbanized and energy-dependent nation."
--Eleanor Mahoney, Pacific Northwest Quarterly "This balanced
approach should be valued and replicated by other environmental
historians who venture into mining history."
--Chris Huggard, Mining History Journal "[A] highly readable and
detailed account of the establishment of industrial mining in
Montana. It should be of interest not only to mining historians,
but also to scholars of electrification and of industrialization
more generally."
--Sarah Grossman, Technology and Culture
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