Appalachia: A History by John Alexander Williams (review)

Atlanta. His depictions of battle and camp life are literate, detailed, and observant,which rightly had led to their frequent citation. Green's usually overlooked experiences in the newlydefeated Confederacy are useful as well. Former University of Kentucky President A.D. Kirwan originally edited the narrative, which first appeared in print in 1956. Kirwan supplied context and clarification through a full biographical introduction, explanatory footnotes, and helpful chapter introductions. Long out of print,this edition of Green' s memoir includes several additional photographs as well as a brief new foreword. In the latter,noted Civil War author and preservationist Kent Masterson Brown surveys Orphan Brigade historiography, modestly omitting only his own published essay from the list of major works on the unit. The maps, slightly modified versions of the originals, are helpful enough, but might have been updated for clarity. Part of the Shiloh map particularly seems faded, as if it did not photocopy well. A bit of additional footnoting would be handy as well,as Kirwan almost always failed to identify the federal units that the Orphans faced. These minor problems aside, this attractive new edition of Green's memoirs,already an awardwinner ,will be a welcome addition to students of the Civil War' s Western Theater. Indeed it belongs on any Civil War historian' s bookshelf. Kenneth W.Noe Auburn University John Alexander Williams. Appalacbia: A History. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. 473 pp. ISBN: 0807826995 ( paper), $ 19.95. ohn Alexander Williams has writtena comprehensive history of a region that simultaneously occupies a distinct place in American history,forms a colonized location within an industrializing national economy,and suffers the most stereotypical icons and myths imaginable. His effort compares favorably with Richard Drake' s A History of Appalachia 2001) in attempting to synthesize four decades of increasingly mature scholarship about the southern mountains. He also perceptivel. z distinguishes between the historic and the symbolic Appalachia ,and in doing so rarely fails to chide niainstream America for its ambivalent, and often ignorant ,understanding of mountain culture. And yet, perhaps not surprisingly given the ongc, ing development of scholarship on the regjon, the author seems at times hesitant tc)weigh in on some central historiographical issues, a reluctance that may not wholly satisfy either the professional or the popular audiences he hopes t() reach. Williams certainly establishes a useful chronological approach to understanding Appalachia's past. The first period,spanning the entrada of Spanish conquistadores in the midsixteenth century to the Cherokee Removal three hundred years later, was marked by both discovery and exploitation as the region gradually came to be bound commer cially and politically to a new American nation. The second phase lasted roughly from the mideigh teenth century in the Valley of Virginia to the midnineteenth century throughout the mountain region. During that period economic development doomed the " classical" farmand forest economy of the Allegheny and Cumberland plateaus. The Civil War' s devastating impact then aggravated the overall economic decline of the region in the late nineteenth century when Appalachia gained its reputation as a strange land inhabited by peculiar people. Ironically ,the creation of this cultural otherness emerged during the third phase of Appalachia' s history when nationalizing institutionsranging from contending corporations and labor unions to the militaryindustrial complex and a nascent tourist industryintegrated the region even more fully into the larger political economy beyond its borders. Finally,a fourth era, postindustrial in nature and extending from World War II to the present,has been marked FALL 2003 77 BOOK REVIEWS by both official and unofficial efforts to identify what could stjll possibly be defined as Appalachian. Within this chronological framework Williams addresses a host of thematic issues. He qualifies the idea that Appalachia constituted the first American frontier and was settled first by ScotchIrish immigrants; argues that much of the region' s history stems from the creation of a greater Petnsyl vania in the southern backcountry; describes a paradoxical antebellum political system that acknowledged egalitarian tradition while remaining subservient to a maledominated plantation elite; asserts that a volatile Unionism in Appalachia contributed to its impoverishment;contrasts the region's reputation for violence with the actual extent of it; critiques the limitations and...