Making and Breaking Big Rural: Science and Technology Construct the Coalfield examines science and technology research and its role in constructing a rural industrial space such as the Pocahontas Coalfield in Southern West Virginia/Southwest Virginia. It examines the ramifications of this single sector rural space, and of automation and coalfield technology, on its inhabitants, especially on their capacity for democratic practice. In a call for science and research for public benefit, it proposes how scientific and technological research ought to engage with the people and the environment in this rural industrial space, and in the rural space more generally. Using a case study of the Pocahontas Coalfield as a springboard, a draft of a National Rural Strategy for the United States also is proposed.