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leadership of the reyitalization efforts. They understand that in the tapestry of history you learn as much from the battle scenes as from more idyllic pictures of the past. There are idyllic pictures, nevertheless, including stories of box suppers and local music, airplane rides and baseball teams, midwives and home remedies, and parades that are at once community celebrations and political statements. The second volume of Ivanhoe's history project collects the full texts of oral histories that form much of the substance of the first volume. It includes interviews with residents made before the current project began (as early as 1928), and interviews on subjects about the social and cultural life of Ivanhoe in past years, work at the carbide plant, and the work of the civic league in recapturing the community's hold on its future. The second volume concludes with a chronology of events in Ivanhoe's history and simultaneous events in national and world history. This chronology argues for the need to record history locally as well as globally, and to understand the interplay between the two levels in making patterns from the patchwork. Some readers of these two volumes from beyond the community may find the local detail more plentiful than they need; they may encounter allusions based on assumed local knowledge that they don't understand. But readers will be impressed and encouraged that a small community in Appalachia has recovered its own history and developed a politically sophisticated historical consciousness that gives it a firmer grip on its future. Part of that sophistication reveals itself in artfully shaped oral narratives in the books and in attention to galvanizing ritual symbols, such as curses and blessings, a huge rock ground down with little more than determination , a human chain of joined hands, parades, and a celebration of Jubilee, that ancient ritual marking the return of a community to its rightful owners. Eudora Welty has said that understanding one place helps us know other places better; sense of place gives us equilibrium and, extended, a sense of direction. In recognition of how well Remembering Our Past has given the people of Ivanhoe, and potentially other Appalachian communities, comprehension, equilibrium, and direction, the book was awarded this year's W. D. Weatherford Award by Berea College for significant writing about Appalachia. Recently Wendell Berry has argued for the revival of rural communities as our hope for the renewal of our country. "But," he adds, "to be authentic, a true encouragement and a true beginning, this would have to be a revival accomplished mainly by the community itself . . . not from the outside by the instruction of visiting experts, but from the inside by the ancient rule of neighborliness, by the love of precious things, and by the wish to be at home." We may all be encouraged by Ivanhoe's example. —Jean Haskell Speer Corbin, David Alan, editor. The West Virginia Mine Wars: An Anthology. Charleston, West Virginia: Appalachian Editions, 1991. 165 pages. Paperback. $9.95. David Alan Corbin's Life, Work and Rebellion in the Coal Fields: The Southern West Virginia Miners, 1880-1922 is perhaps the best-known book of its type to appear in recent years. Corbin has now supplemented that work by putting together a short anthology of articles, Senate hearing records, and even propaganda dealing with the 1912-21 era of union organization in the West Virginia coalfields. The West Virginia Mine Wars draws from a variety of sources, ranging from the New York Times and Baltimore Sun to the Communist Party of America's 68 official newsletter. The smallish 165page volume does not pretend to be comprehensive, but gives a good idea of what was going on in West Virginia during the United Mine Workers of America's struggle to organize there. Unlike more ponderous anthologies, The West Virginia Mine Wars is readable and is a useful text. Being a distant cousin to both Sid Hatfield and Don Chafin, I enjoy reading about the exploits of both men in books like this, comparing what I read with the tales of various relatives. Corbin uses melodramatic phrasing to introduce and title each section of this book, including the portions dealing with Hatfield...

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