Dead Laws for Dead Men

Daniel J. Curran, a sociologist by training, is president of the University of Dayton.

The persistence of unhealthy and unsafe working conditions in the late twentieth century is a depressing fact of life for working people generally, and miners in particular. . . . Why the cycle of disaster, inquiry, recommendations, and reform brings so little amelioration is the subject of Daniel J. Curran's excellent monograph on the history, and current practice, of federal occupational health and safety regulation in the United States coal-mining industry.