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 40 chapters · ~67h Advanced Data Science 39 chapters · ~57h AI Ethics 39 chapters · ~82h AI Literacy 21 chapters · ~13h AI & ML for Business 40 chapters · ~80h AI Engineering 40 chapters · ~53h Algorithmic Addiction 40 chapters · ~71h American Government 40 chapters · ~77h Applied Psychology 40 chapters · ~52h Assembly Language 40 chapters · ~27h Blockchain & Crypto 40 chapters · ~68h Calculus 40 chapters · ~51h College Football Analytics 28 chapters · ~18h Creator Economy 41 chapters · ~57h Pattern Recognition 43 chapters · ~92h Cybersecurity 40 chapters · ~84h Data & Society 40 chapters · ~71h Data Viz with Python 35 chapters · ~53h Discrete Mathematics for Computer Science 40 chapters · ~75h Ethical Hacking 41 chapters · ~58h Fandom 44 chapters · ~71h How Humans Get Stuck 40 chapters · ~36h Handling Confrontation 40 chapters · ~80h How to Learn Anything 38 chapters · ~54h How Your House Works 40 chapters · ~66h IBM DB2 37 chapters · ~53h Intermediate COBOL 54 chapters · ~44h Intermediate Data Science 36 chapters · ~39h Intro CS Python 27 chapters · ~13h Intro to Data Science 36 chapters · ~54h Introductory Economics 40 chapters · ~12h Introductory Statistics 28 chapters · ~47h Learning COBOL 42 chapters · ~64h Prediction Markets 42 chapters · ~60h Linear Algebra 40 chapters · ~60h Metacognition 28 chapters · ~52h Media Literacy 41 chapters · ~81h Music Production 40 chapters · ~84h NFL Analytics 28 chapters · ~16h Nuclear Physics 35 chapters · ~28h Organic Chemistry 40 chapters · ~21h Pascal Programming 40 chapters · ~43h Physics of Music 48 chapters · ~75h Political Analytics 41 chapters · ~67h Popular Psychology 40 chapters · ~21h Practical Philosophy 38 chapters · ~63h Basketball Analytics 31 chapters · ~30h Soccer Analytics 30 chapters · ~43h Propaganda 40 chapters · ~80h Python for Business 40 chapters · ~40h Quantum Mechanics 40 chapters · ~66h RegTech 40 chapters · ~59h The Science of Cooking 40 chapters · ~70h Science of Seduction 45 chapters · ~60h Sports Betting 42 chapters · ~63h Technical Writing 40 chapters · ~70h Architecture of Surveillance 40 chapters · ~54h Science of Luck 40 chapters · ~72h Eastern Cultures 40 chapters · ~47h Western Culture 40 chapters · ~30h Vibe Coding 42 chapters · ~58h Video Game Design 40 chapters · ~36h Why They Watch 40 chapters · ~48h Working with AI 42 chapters · ~58h