Appalachia: A History
by John Alexander Williams
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Book Summary Information
Author: John Alexander WilliamsEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-04-29
ISBN: 0807853682
Number of pages: 496
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Book Reviews of Appalachia: A History
Book Review: "A Mountain Thing"
Summary: 4 Stars
My fascination with Appalachia's terrain and people has been growing for years, but I was finally prompted to read this book at a music festival in the western mountains of Virginia. When I asked a local woman to show me how to do a kind of clog-dancing common in the region, she answered (very sweetly) "I'm not sure I could teach it to you -- it's a mountain thing."
This book might be the best single way to explore the historical depths of what that "mountain thing" is. It takes us from the original Cherokee (and other) residents and their sorrowful history; through the first settlement by Europeans; through the very complicated Civil War period; through the pillage of the region by coal companies. logging companies and others; and into our own time, with Appalachia imagined on one extreme as America's Third World, and on the other as a folk paradise of folk-music, woodcraft and quilt-making.
The sections on the Civil War era were especially enlightening for me. I grew up thinking of central Appalachia as just another part of The South, hence rebel territory. More recently, I was taught that Appalachia was an island of Unionism, or at least neutrality, in the midst of the Confederacy. The reality is much more complicated and sadder. Williams carefully reveals the many warring sentiments that made mountain life a true 'civil war', with neighbors fighting neighbors, towns preyed on in alternation by Confederate and Federal troops, bands of free-lance marauders, and guerilla armies of every variety. More than one young mountain man was drafted into both the Confederate and Union armies in succession. A gruesome story, one that makes the violence of 'Cold Mountain' seem almost tame.
I close with a small complaint: this book could use more, and better, MAPS. John Alexander Williams very nicely explains how the region's layout has affected its entire history -- but to follow what he was saying I found myself running to the atlas many times. Several good, detailed, relief maps would have made a big difference.
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