1
Front Matter
5 chapters2
Part I: The Land Before
5 chapters- Part One: The Land Before
- Chapter 1: The Oldest Mountains in the World — Geological History and How the Land Shaped Everything That Followed
- Chapter 2: First Peoples — 10,000 Years of Indigenous Life in the Appalachian Mountains
- Chapter 3: Cherokee Appalachia — The Nation That Shaped the Mountains
- Chapter 4: Contact, Colonization, and the Unmaking of Indigenous Appalachia
3
Part II: Settlement and the Frontier
7 chapters- Part Two: Settlement and the Frontier
- Chapter 5: Who Came to the Mountains? Scotch-Irish, German, English, and African Migration into Appalachia
- Chapter 6: Slavery in the Mountains — The Hidden History of Black Appalachia
- Chapter 7: The Frontier Economy — Subsistence, Trade, and the First Industries
- Chapter 8: Religion, Community, and Culture in Early Appalachia
- Chapter 9: Women on the Frontier — Gender, Labor, and Survival in Mountain Communities
- Chapter 10: Revolution, Republic, and the Whiskey Rebellion — Appalachia in the New Nation
4
Part III: Civil War and Aftermath
5 chapters- Part Three: The Civil War and Its Aftermath
- Chapter 11: A Region Divided — Appalachia and the Civil War
- Chapter 12: Emancipation in the Mountains — Black Appalachians from Slavery to Freedom
- Chapter 13: The Feud Mythology — What Really Happened (and What It Was Really About)
- Chapter 14: The "Discovery" of Appalachia — How Outsiders Invented a Region
5
Part IV: Industrialization and Extraction
8 chapters- Part Four: Industrialization and Extraction
- Chapter 15: King Coal — How the Coal Industry Transformed Appalachia
- Chapter 16: Company Towns — Living Under Corporate Rule
- Chapter 17: Blood on the Coal — Labor Wars in the Mountains
- Chapter 18: Timber, Railroads, and Environmental Devastation — The First Extraction
- Chapter 19: Immigrant Appalachia — The Diversity of the Coalfields
- Chapter 20: The Great Migration Out — Why Millions Left the Mountains
- Chapter 21: Black Lung, Cave-Ins, and Sago — The Human Cost of Coal
6
Part V: Reform, Resistance, and the War on Poverty
6 chapters- Part Five: Reform, Resistance, and the War on Poverty
- Chapter 22: The New Deal in the Mountains — TVA, the CCC, and Federal Transformation
- Chapter 23: The War on Poverty — When America "Discovered" Appalachian Poverty Again
- Chapter 24: Mountaintop Removal — When They Blew Up the Mountains
- Chapter 25: Education and the Fight for Literacy — From Settlement Schools to Consolidation
- Chapter 26: The Appalachian Resistance Tradition — From Blair Mountain to Buffalo Creek to Climate Activism
7
Part VI: Culture and Identity
6 chapters- Part Six: Culture and Identity
- Chapter 27: Music of the Mountains — From Ballads to Bluegrass to Country to Beyond
- Chapter 28: Appalachian Literature — Writing the Mountains from Within
- Chapter 29: Faith in the Hollers — Religion in Appalachian Life
- Chapter 30: Foodways, Craft, and Material Culture — What Appalachians Made and How They Lived
- Chapter 31: Language, Dialect, and the Politics of How You Sound
8
Part VII: Modern Appalachia
8 chapters- Part Seven: Modern Appalachia
- Chapter 32: The Coal Economy's Collapse — What Happens When the One Industry Dies
- Chapter 33: The Opioid Crisis — How Appalachia Became Ground Zero
- Chapter 34: Appalachia and American Politics — From Yellow Dog Democrats to Trump Country
- Chapter 35: Stereotypes, Media, and the Battle Over Appalachian Identity
- Chapter 36: The New Appalachia — Immigration, Remote Work, Tourism, and Reinvention
- Chapter 37: Energy Transition — Appalachia's Past, Present, and Future in the Climate Crisis
- Chapter 38: Health, Despair, and Resilience — Healthcare from Company Doctors to Rural Hospital Closures
9
Part VIII: Synthesis and Reflection
5 chapters- Part Eight: Synthesis and Reflection
- Chapter 39: The Eastern Band and Indigenous Persistence — Native Appalachia Then and Now
- Chapter 40: Whose Appalachia? Race, Class, Gender, and the Fight Over a Region's Story
- Chapter 41: What Appalachia Teaches America — Resource Extraction, Inequality, and the Sacrifice Zone
- Chapter 42: The View from the Porch — Living in Appalachia Today
10
Part IX: Capstone
5 chapters11
Appendices
11 chapters- Index
- Appendix A: Primary Sources Anthology
- Appendix B: Historical Timeline
- Appendix C: Argument Maps
- Appendix D: Research Methods for Appalachian History
- Appendix E: Key Studies in Appalachian Scholarship
- Appendix F: Oral History Guide
- Appendix G: County Research Toolkit
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Answers to Selected Exercises
Explore Related Books
More open-access textbooks from our library
Advanced COBOL 305 pages AI Ethics 304 pages AI Literacy 40 pages AI & ML for Business 304 pages AI Engineering 307 pages Algorithmic Addiction 303 pages Applied Psychology 303 pages College Football Analytics 213 pages Creator Economy 318 pages Pattern Recognition 322 pages Data & Society 305 pages Ethical Hacking 318 pages Fandom 332 pages How Humans Get Stuck 285 pages Handling Confrontation 306 pages How Your House Works 306 pages IBM DB2 282 pages Intermediate COBOL 334 pages Intro CS Python 44 pages Intro to Data Science 266 pages Introductory Statistics 216 pages Learning COBOL 322 pages Prediction Markets 316 pages Metacognition 222 pages Media Literacy 314 pages NFL Analytics 182 pages Physics of Music 316 pages Political Analytics 324 pages Basketball Analytics 214 pages Soccer Analytics 230 pages Propaganda 304 pages Python for Business 298 pages Quantum Mechanics 303 pages RegTech 307 pages Science of Seduction 320 pages Sports Betting 322 pages Architecture of Surveillance 299 pages Science of Luck 306 pages Vibe Coding 316 pages Why They Watch 308 pages Working with AI 316 pages