well-being, a puzzle that economists call “the resource curse.” Much of West Virginia’s wealth, in the form of coal, oil … discouraging story was not inevitable. In 1905, a Morgantown lawyer named George C. Baker led an effort to tax coal, oil, and gas … threatening battles elsewhere, the coal industry resisted. Coal companies and their attorneys succeeded in diluting the new taxes …

From the early day of mining in colonial Virginia and Maryland up to the time of World War II, blacks were an important … part of the labor force in the coal industry. Yet in this, as in other enterprises, their role has heretofore been largely … ignored. Now Roland L. Lewis redresses the balance in this comprehensive history of black coal miners in America. The …