For over forty years, Builder Levy has documented the lives of coal miners and their families in Central Appalachia. “Overburden” is the definitive collection of this life’s work, featuring powerful black-and-white images that capture the dignity of labor against a backdrop of environmental exploitation and economic hardship. The title refers both to the geological term for the soil and rock covering a coal seam and the systemic social pressures placed upon the region’s people. Levy’s photographs are deeply humanistic, portraying the resilience of the Appalachian spirit through coal-dusted portraits and sweeping views of strip-mined mountains. This Kerber volume serves as a significant historical archive of an American way of life at a crossroads.