Earth and Below is an illustrated story based upon a history of copper mining, along with discursive riffs on the nature of the element. It is, in a sense, everything one ever wanted to know about copper. The subject matter is organized by Struggles, Theories, and Materials. Struggles most directly addresses the labor issues involved in the history of attempts to organize copper workers and their working conditions, but includes other themes of struggle as well. Theories contains work that explores how differing outlooks, most commonly class-based, but not exclusively so, impacted upon the lives of copper workers. Lastly, Materials looks at copper and copper mines as objects in a larger world.