This collection is the first comprehensive, cohesive volume to unite Appalachian history with its culture. Richard A. Straw and H. Tyler Blethen's High Mountains Rising provides a clear, systematic, and engaging overview of the Appalachian timeline, its people, and the most significant aspects of life in the region.

The first half of the fourteen essays deal with historical issues including Native Americans, pioneer settlement, slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction, industrialization, the Great Depression, migration, and finally, modernization. The remaining essays take a more cultural focus, addressing stereotypes, music, folklife, language, literature, and religion.

Bringing together many of the most prestigious scholars in Appalachian studies, this volume has been designed for general and classroom use, and includes suggestions for further reading.

|Acknowledgments vi

Introduction 1 Richard A. Straw
1. Native Americans 7 C. Clifford Boyd Jr.
2. Pioneer Settlement 17 H. Tyler Blethen
3. Slavery and African Americans in the Nineteenth Century 30 John C. Inscoe
4. The Civil War and Reconstruction 46 Gordon B. McKinney
5. Industrialization 59 Ronald L. Lewis
6. The Great Depression 74 Paul Salstrom
7. Migration 88 Phillip J. Obermiller
8. Stereotypes 101 David C. Hsiung
9. Music 114 Bill C. Malone
10. Folklife 135 Michael Ann Williams
11. English Language 147 Michael Montgomery
12. Literature 165 Ted Olson
13. Religion 179 Deborah Vansau McCauley
14. Modernization, 1940-2000 197 Ronald D Eller

Suggested Readings 221
Contributors 231
Index 235
| Appalachian Writers Association, Appalachian Book of the Year Award in Nonfiction, 2005. Winner of the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award, 2005. — Appalachian Writers Association
Appalachian Writers Association, Appalachian Book of the Year Award in Nonfiction, 2005. Winner of the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award, 2005. — Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award
|Richard A. Straw is professor of history at Radford University, the author of Images of America: Blacksburg, and has published articles on Appalachian foodways, on Mike Seeger, and on the United Mine Workers of America, coal mining, and historical photography. H. Tyler Blethen is Creighton Sossomon Professor of History and director of the Mountain Heritage Center at Western Carolina University, and a coeditor of Ulster and North America: Transatlantic Perspectives on the Scotch-Irish.