During the period he considers, reports Bloom, at least a thousand acres of farm, forest, and watershed land were adversely affected by smoke and sulfur dioxide fumes by the three huge copper smelters in northern California's Shasta County, built and run by such powers as Rothschild and Guggenheim. The 20 years of airborne poisons during the actual smelting were followed by 20 years of fire and rain, completely devastating over 200 square miles. No one has told the story before, so he had to delve into archival sources to discover the who, how and why of the murder. The what and when were obvious. Arthur H. Clark is an imprint of the University of Oklahoma Press. Annotation 2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
