Bill carter has extracted something that remains all but unnoticed by most people copper and told an incredible story about this amazing metal boom bust boom is the best sort of journalism beautifully written rich in detail and impossible to ignore i particularly loved how carter wove a personal story into a topic of global scope. There are few that are as far reaching and descriptive as boom bust boom bill carter takes just one element copper and paints a picture that is both scary and hopeless he not only researches copper mining in arizona but places such as mexico africa and new guinea. Bill carters boom bust boom is an excellent book that will wake you up to the importance and dangers of the worlds most extraordinary metal copper copper is a cheap conductive metal that is used in modern societys everything. In following the time honored journalistic tenet that the best stories are the ones you find in your own backyard bill carter begins this account of the all pervasive presence of copper in our lives and its cost on our health economy and our environment with a simple personal discovery the presence of arsenic from leftover mine tailings in his backyard garden in the former copper mining . Copper is a miraculous and contradictory metal essential to nearly every human enterprise for most of recorded history this remarkably pliable and sturdy substance has proven invaluable not only did the ancient romans build their empire on mining copper but christopher columbus protected his ships from rot by lining their hulls with it