Michael Punke Bundle (2 Books)

Included in this bundle are:

• 9780008189310- Fire and Brimstone: In this compelling tale, Punke recounts the grim details of the worst hard-rock mining disaster in United States history. On June 8, 1917, a fire broke out in the main shaft of a huge complex of copper mines 2,000 feet beneath Granite Mountain in Butte, Mont. The fire raged for three days, killing 164 of the 400 or so men at work that day. Punke, a Washington, D.C., lawyer and novelist, takes the reader deep underground and into the heart of the calamity. If the horrifying account of the fire and the trapped men is the heart of this yarn, its soul is Punke's historical contextualization of the event. He paints a vivid picture of a city, state and nation in the grip of industrial monopolies.
• 9780008189341- Last Stand: This book is the fascinating story of America's first battle over the environment. In the last three decades of the nineteenth century, an American buffalo herd once numbering 30 million animals was reduced to twelve. In an era that treated the West as nothing more than a treasure chest of resources to be dug up and shot down, the buffalo was a commodity, hounded by hide hunters seeking to make their fortunes. Supporting them was the US Army, which considered the eradication of the buffalo essential to victory in its ongoing war on Native Americans. Into this maelstrom rode young George Bird Grinnell. A scientist and a journalist, a hunter and a conservationist, Grinnell would lead the battle to save the buffalo and preserve an American icon from extinction.