Night Comes to the Cumberlands: A Biography of a Depressed Area (Paperback)

~ (Author) "THE CUMBERLAND PLATEAU region of Kentucky is a serrated upland in the eastern and southeastern part of the state..." (more)
Key Phrases: plateau counties, plateau dwellers, coal brokers, United States, Cumberland Plateau, United Mine Workers (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

At the time it was first published in 1962, it framed such an urgent appeal to the American conscience that it actually prompted the creation of the Appalachian Regional Commission, an agency that has pumped millions of dollars into Appalachia.

Caudill's study begins in the violence of the Indian wars and ends in the economic despair of the 1950s and 1960s. Two hundred years ago, the Cumberland Plateau was a land of great promise. Its deep, twisting valleys contained rich bottomlands. The surrounding mountains were teeming with game and covered with valuable timber. The people who came into this land scratched out a living by farming, hunting, and making all the things they need-including whiskey.

The quality of life in Appalachia declined during the Civil War and Appalachia remained "in a bad way" for the next century. By the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, Appalachia had become an island of poverty in a national sea of plenty and prosperity. Caudill's book alerted the mainstream world to our problems and their causes. Since then the ARC has provided millions of dollars to strengthen the brick and mortar infrastructure of Appalachia and to help us recover from a century of economic problems that had greatly undermined our quality of life.

Product Details

• Paperback: 405 pages
• Publisher: Jesse Stuart Foundation (October 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1931672008
• ISBN-13: 978-1931672009
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #125,127 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars As a native Appalachian, I found this book wonderful., January 29, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Night Comes to the Cumberlands: A Biography of a Depressed Area (Paperback)

In ordering a copy of this book, I found at Amazon both a negative and a positive review. I read this book over 20 years ago. Having grown up in West Virginia, I can evaluate this book as a native. I found it one of the most valuable and truthful books I have ever read. It answered so many questions that I had had during my life in West Virginia and solved so many puzzles for me about my heritage. I have not lived in West Virginia for over 30 years, and years of education and career pursuits elsewhere have taken me away from that culture. However, whenever anyone asks me about life there, I tell them to read this book. I was saddened to read of Caudill's suicide in one of the reviews, and I plan to learn more about him and about why his life came to such a tragic end. I think he did a great favor for all Appalachians in writing Night Comes to the Cumberlands. It is a masterpiece. Whatever the tragedy of his own life, Caudill left a legacy for which we are all indebted. I absolutely disagree with the negative review at this website. Caudill spoke truth.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A significant text in understanding poverty, October 9, 2003

By	Jerald R Lovell (Clinton Township, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Harry Caudill was a native of Eastern Kentucky. His narrative of life in what has become a monument to corporate greed is sensitive, feeling, and very much to the point. The people of the Cumberland Plateau are a polyglot mixture, which Mr Caudill takes great pains to unravel. This part of the book is truly exceptional, and is enriched, not cheapened by Mr Caudill's tracing of his own ancestry back to the times of the Spanish Armada.

Mr.Caudill shows how a wholly separate culture developed from the combination of escapee indentured servant, local Native Americans, and Eastern Europeans. He expertly portrays the religious fundamentalism, outsider domination, and cynical exploitation that have held these people back from self-achievement over the generations. Mr. Caudill tells you how the land, the rivers, and human lives have been repeatedly despoiled by King Coal. He feelingly describes the squalor, poverty, ill health, and tragedies suffered by the region's people. It is not a tale for the overly sensitive, certainly.

Mr. Caudill reflects the ethos of his generation by advocating large-scale government programs to allay the region's problems, a "solution' this writer views with some skepticism. Nothwithstanding this, Mr. Caudill is a genius at showing how particular regions evolve very differently from their neighbors and what happens to those who are left behind.

I recommend the book to anyone interested in regional sociology, the South, and the Appalachian country. It is well worth the read.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars From 'Root Hog or Die' to 'Can You Spare a Dollar, Please.', June 13, 2001

By	"mensetmanus" (Oak Ridge, TN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Night Comes to the Cumberlands: A Biography of a Depressed Area (Paperback)

Taking a quote from the book, it could well have been subtitled: From 'Root Hog or Die' to 'Can You Spare a Dollar, Please.' Although it traces the history primarily of the Eastern Kentucky Cumberland Plateau area, there are probably some similarities with the character of life in similar mountain country in parts of West Virginia, Virginia, and Tennessee. While it describes the history from the time of the first non-native settlers until about 1963, the book is essentially a plea for outside help for the area. The author suggests the formation of a Southern Mountain Authority to be much like the Tennessee Valley Authority. He states "The T.V.A. demonstrated the means by which many of the world's trouble spots can be rescued. It's example now offers solid assurance that, for low direct cost to the taxpayers, America can successfully attack the ills of the Southern highlands in a campaign that will eventually benefit every one of the fifty states." He does not let TVA off without criticism, though, because he blames TVA for much of the motivations that lead to increased strip mining rather than deep mining. He claims that in 1953 TVA began changing from a "benevolent government agency whose masters gave every evidence of a wise dedication to public service" into "a mammoth corporation which subordinated all other considerations to low costs and balanced budgets."

Other than the concluding plea for help, the book is depressing, and offers little hope. It traces the history from fiercely independent settlers, through company coal towns, to a severely depressed welfare state with poor schools, which threaten to perpetuate the problems indefinitely. Despite the depressing aspects, the history is well written and interesting.

In predicting the continued decline of the coal industry, the author does reasonably well, but does not foresee the formation of an organization like OPEC, and he makes an interesting, perhaps over-confident comment about nuclear power. He says, "The growing petroleum glut and the network of natural gas pipelines lessen coal's importance with each passing season. Within a few years tireless atomic reactors will provide much of the electric power now made from coal."