Eller - Uneven ground: Appalachia since 1945

Praise for Uneven Ground: Appalachia since 1945

Appalachia still weighs heavily on Americas conscience and consciousness, as Ronald D Eller demonstrates with great insight and eloquence in his much-anticipated new study. Uneven Ground offers a clear and compelling portrait of the complexities and contradictions that characterize this vast and increasingly diverse region, burdened at once by growth and stagnation, by both its past and its future. This is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the dynamics of poverty and progress, of power and powerlessness, in modern Appalachia and the discomforting disparities that still set it apart from the nation as a whole.John C. Inscoe, author of Race, War, and Remembrance in the Appalachian South

Ronald D Eller has written a provocative, compelling, and comprehensive account of the vast transformations in the Appalachian region from 1945 to the present. Against a backdrop of major economic and demographic trends such as deindustrialization, the spread of consumerism, and out-migration, Eller brilliantly analyzes politics and policy making, reform movements and citizen activism, and, above all else, the misplaced faith in economic development that has contributed more to inequality, impoverishment, and environmental ruin in the mountain region than to prosperity and well-being. A must read.Dwight B. Billings, Professor of Sociology, University of Kentucky

The reality and the idea of Appalachia have intrigued and frustrated outside observers for more than a century. Policy makers have long sought to transformmodernizethrough social engineering. Eller provides a judicious, informed history.... Anyone interested in Appalachia should read this book.John B. Boles, William P. Hobby Professor of History

Uneven Ground is passionate, clear, concise, and at times profound. It represents in many ways the cumulative vision of decades of observation about, experience in, and research on Appalachia. Eller is astute to relate very early in the book how integral Appalachia was to the history of American development.Chad Berry, author of Southern Migrants, Northern Exiles

Makes important contributions to the fields of Appalachian history and the history of the United States antipoverty public policy. A sweeping narrative that cuts across a half century of economic, political, and environmental themes, this book provides a synthesis of scholarship and commentary concerning the politics of economic development directed toward the southern mountains. It is a highly significant work that will serve as the standard reference for the foreseeable future.Robert S. Weise, author of Grasping at Independence: Debt, Male Authority, and Mineral Rights in Appalachian Kentucky, 18501915

In Uneven Ground, Ronald D Eller masterfully integrates historical and public-policy analysis into a new and definitive history of modern Appalachia. No other observer has so skillfully located postWorld War II Appalachia at the center of debates over social, political, and economic equity in America. Eller shows how competing interpretations of modernization, development, and reform have historically failed to address structural factors in global capitalism that have contributed to persistent class and cultural conflicts in the region.John C. Hennen, author of The Americanization of West Virginia

Uneven Ground is a cogent, deeply informed narrative of the transformations and traditions that have made Appalachia what it is today. Drawing on an impressive range of historical knowledge as well as his own experiences as an activist, advocate, and policy advisor, Eller examines the often-conflicting ideas, attitudes, motivations, and especially the politics behind postWorld War II efforts to modernize the regionand the deep-seated problems of inequality, social and environmental exploitation, and outside corporate dominance that these efforts either exacerbated or failed to address.... The story of Appalachia, Eller makes clear, is an American story: of persistent, now rapidly growing disparities of wealth and political power; of the drive for growth and development at both human and environmental expense; of efforts to solve poverty without addressing underlying inequities; of the quest to preserve cultural integrity against commercial exploitation.... Though transformed by economic development, Appalachia remains grounded in the traditions that continue to shape and inspire another American story: of the enduring struggle for economic and environmental democracy.Alice OConnor, author of Poverty Knowledge: Social Science, Social Policy, and the Poor in Twentieth-Century U.S. History

UNEVEN GROUND

APPALACHIA SINCE 1945

Ronald D Eller

WITH A NEW AFTERWORD ON
THE FUTURE OF APPALACHIA

Copyright 2008 by Ronald D Eller
Paperback edition 2013

How America Came to the Mountains, by Jim Wayne Miller, is reprinted from The Brier Poems by permission of Gnomon Press. Copyright 1997 by The Estate of Jim Wayne Miller.

The University Press of Kentucky

Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth, serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University. All rights reserved.

Editorial and Sales Offices: The University Press of Kentucky 663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008 www.kentuckypress.com

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The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows: Eller, Ronald D, 1948

Uneven ground : Appalachia since 1945 / Ronald D Eller.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-8131-2523-7 (hardcover : alk. paper)

1. Appalachian Region, SouthernRural conditions. 2. Appalachian Region, SouthernEconomic conditions. 3. Appalachian Region, SouthernSocial conditions20th century. 4. Appalachian Region, SouthernSocial conditions21st century. 5. Rural developmentAppalachian Region, SouthernHistory. 6. PovertyAppalachian Region, SouthernHistory. 7. Rural poorAppalachian Region, SouthernHistory. I. Title.

HN79.A127E55 2008

307.14120975dc22

2008027993

ISBN 978-0-8131-4246-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)

This book is printed on acid-free paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials.

Manufactured in the United States of America.

For Jane
and for the memory of our parents,
Elden Carl and Freda Jane Wilson
and
Oliver D and Virginia Ruth Eller