Over the past five hundred years, North Americans have increasingly turned to mining to produce much of their basic social and cultural objects. Drawing on the work of scholars from Mexico, the United States, and Canada, this book explores how mining has shaped North America over the last half millennium.

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction: Of Mines, Minerals, and North American Environmental History George Vrtis and J. R. McNeill PART ONE. CAPITALIST TRANSFORMATIONS 1. Exhausting the Sierra Madre: Mining Ecologies in Mexico over the Longue Durée Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert 2. Reconstructing the Environmental History of Colonial Mining: The Real del Catorce Mining District, Northeastern New Spain/Mexico, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries Antonio Avalos-Lozano and Miguel Aguilar-Robledo PART TWO. INDUSTRIAL CATALYSTS 3. A World of Mines and Mills: Precious-Metals Mining, Industrialization, and the Nature of the Colorado Front Range George Vrtis 4. Consequences of the Comstock: The Remaking of Working Environments on America’s Largest Silver Strike, 1859–1880 Robert N. Chester III 5. Dust to Dust: The Colorado Coal Mine Explosion Crisis of 1910 Thomas G. Andrews 6. Copper and Longhorns: Material and Human Power in Montana’s Smelter Smoke War, 1860–1910 Timothy James LeCain 7. Efficiency, Economics, and Environmentalism: Low-Grade Iron Ore Mining in the Lake Superior District, 1913–2010 Jeffrey T. Manuel PART THREE. HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE 8. Mining the Atom: Uranium in the Twentieth-Century American West Eric Mogren 9. A Comparative Case Study of Uranium Mine and Mill Tailings Regulation in Canada and the United States Robynne Mellor 10. The Giant Mine’s Long Shadow: Arsenic Pollution and Native People in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories John Sandlos and Arn Keeling 11. Iron Mines, Toxicity, and Indigenous Communities in the Lake Superior Basin Nancy Langston 12. If the Rivers Ran South: Tar Sands and the State of the Canadian Nation Steven M. Hoffman 13. Quebec Asbestos: Triumph and Collapse, 1879–1983 Jessica van Horssen Afterword: Mining, Memory, and History Andrew C. Isenberg Contributors Index

"Mining North America is a kaleidoscopic and exhaustive volume that places mining at the center of a cutting-edge historical analysis of human society's relationship with the environment, ranging from the sixteenth century to the twenty-first. This unique collection of essays covers an impressive array of interrelated yet heretofore overlooked topics. Vividly written and timely, this book should engage a wide, multidisciplinary audience."—Ryan Dearinger, Associate Professor of History at Eastern Oregon University and author of The Filth of Progress: Immigrants, Americans, and the Building of Canals and Railroads in the West"This fascinating exploration of North American mining history fills a gaping hole in the field and illuminates a fraught and wide-ranging struggle to meet our voracious demand for the minerals underlying modern life. From the silver mines of Mexico to the tar sands and gold mines of Canada, Mining North America shows how industrial capitalism reshaped a continent and left behind a toxic legacy of inequalities."—Paul Sabin, author of The Bet: Paul Ehrlich, Julian Simon, and Our Gamble over Earth’s Future "This book advances the argument that mining the earth has been central to modern history. After absorbing its impressive stories and evidence, ranging across a continent‘s incredible mineral wealth, from gold and silver to uranium, iron ore, and bitumen, we can no longer look on mining simply as a romantic and colorful adventure from the past. Mining creates our world, for good or bad. Powerfully convincing!"—Donald Worster, author of Shrinking the Earth: The Rise and Decline of American Abundance

"Mining North America (un)covers a lot of ground. It also succeeds at its major task: describing the intertwined social and environmental consequences of mining . . . [it] will prove an effective resource for those who want to better understand environmental change on a continental scale."