Customer Reviews

Absentee Landowning and Exploitation in West Virginia, 1760-1920

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Anyone with any rudimentary knowledge of West Virginia history will appreciate this work by Barbara Rasmussen. A basic trait of most humans is that they will take care of the land they own and depend on for their existence. They will also have a sense of community unlike the many industrial giants that took advantage of not only West Virginia but many other parts of our country. West Virginia history is sadly filled with exploitation of the state's people and resources. Industrialism in West Virginia proved once again that without a sense of responsibility for helping your workers grow both personally and financially you breed a population of dependents and you end up with socialism. This lead to the Great Depression and we are just now climbing out of the socialist mess it left behind. I recommend that you read Rasmussen's book and decide for yourself where the truth lies.

This appears to be the senior thesis of a struggling C or D student. The writing is very poor and it appears that the writer decided what conclusions she would reach and then fit all the facts to reach that conclusion, and failed to consider other sides of the issue. A very one-sided, polemic and unintellectual book.

The work of a biased amateur with no sense of the true West Virginia. The methodology is poorly conceived and rigged to yield the author's desired outcome. This book is a classic example of how not to do history.