The Black Fog

In December 1952, a high-pressure weather system trapped the smoke from millions of coal fires over London. Within hours, visibility dropped to zero. By the time the "Great Smog" lifted five days later, 12,000 people were dead. Historian Arthur Penn reconstructs this suffocating tragedy in "The Black Fog." Penn vividly describes a city where cinemas closed because audiences couldn't see the screen, and where funeral directors ran out of coffins. He exposes the initial government cover-up, where politicians blamed the deaths on influenza to protect the coal industry. The book documents the turning point: how this disaster shocked the world and led directly to the Clean Air Act of 1956, the first modern environmental legislation. "The Black Fog" is a grim reminder of the price of industrialization and a testament to the fact that the right to breathe clean air was written in the blood of Londoners.