Читать книгу The History of Mining - Michael Coulson - Страница 4

If men could learn from history, the English poet and philosopher Coleridge exclaimed, what lessons it might teach us. There is certainly much in Michael Coulson’s magisterial history of mining that will be of inestimable value to anyone with an interest in this industry that touches all our lives. Equally importantly, by charting mining’s crucial role in the rise of civilisation and economic growth, it stands as a salutary corrective to those who would portray miners as rapacious plunderers of the earth and exploiters of its people.

Not that the industry’s conduct has always or universally been impeccable, of course: over the centuries it has hosted perhaps more than its fair share of rogues and charlatans, drawn by the prospect of instant riches. As Michael explains in this book, however, mining has been responsive to societal change, and I think there is now a widespread acceptance within the industry that heedless self-interest is not only morally wrong but bad for business. This is particularly true in those developing regions where so much of the world’s remaining resources are stored.

I first met Michael some 25 years ago when I was still working in the platinum industry in South Africa. Since then I have come to know him as an especially astute analyst, incisive in investigation, energetic in action and forthright in holding managements to account when he deemed this necessary. As the two books he has published to date attest, he is also a gifted scholar, and this combination of qualities makes him one of a rare breed which the industry sadly no longer produces.

The History of Mining appears at a time when the world is a turbulent place, rocked by conflicts, the resurgence of a nuclear threat, the near-collapse of the global banking system and the staggering debt burdens on its once key economies. Meanwhile, the rise of powerful new emerging-market economies has driven a decade-long bull run in commodities. Amid this confusion, we look to the past for lessons and signs of what the future might hold. After all, if you don’t know where you’ve come from, how will you know where you should be going? Michael’s timely book answers the first part of that conundrum and points the way for the road ahead.

Mark Bristow, Chief Executive, Randgold Resources

London, September 2012