Starting in his own backyard in the old mining town of Bisbee, Arizona -- where he discovers that the dirt in his garden contains double the acceptable level of arsenic -- Bill Carter follows the story of copper to the controversial Grasberg copper mine in Indonesia; to the 'ring' at the London Metal Exchange, where a select group of traders buy and sell enormous amounts of the metal; and to an Alaskan salmon run threated by mining. This is a highly readable account -- part social history, part mining-town exploration, and part environmental investigation. Carter blends the personal and the international in a narrative that helps us understand the paradoxical relationship we have with a substance whose necessity to civilization costs the environment and the people who mine it dearly.