I read a fascinating book on coal several years ago. It was either bought used and given away or a library book, but I am 90% certain it was Coal: A Human History by Barbara Freese. It is likely that she made a good impression on her book tour, either on The Daily Show or that CSPAN Booknotes type show. She made a potentially mundane topic sound important and interesting enough I laid my hands on the book.

A few high points, or "spoilers" if non-fiction books can have those -

• Romans carved jewelry out of it but didn't burn it much.

• Medieval societies typically would denude the land of trees first, then turn to coal. It did not save trees so much as they were out of trees within a day's walk from their city, or what we would call their tiny village. When wood got scarce, its use as building material trumped burning.

• European coal smells bad enough when burnt (just in a stove or pit, in the old days) that it would be used for industrial things outside of the home, then only grudgingly for home heating/cooking when wood became too scarce/expensive.

• You need a ton of wood/coal to make refined metals. Even in ancient and medieval times, it was scarcity of fuel as much as scarcity of metal ore that decided if your nation had enough metal. Coal really helped the British get a leg up over their many enemies on the continent.

• Coal's role in refining, making bricks, heat, etc. was huge before the steam engine. Early steam tech was driven by the need to dig coal out of deeper in the earth. The first steam engines that poked along at 3 rpm were used as water pumps. Their use in the coal industry drove later advances that made steam power practical for other things.

• Air pollution in the 19th C. cities was way worse than anything in China today.

edit - too many words, took some out.