Night Comes to the Cumberlands: A Biography of a Depressed Area by Harry Caudill

I reviewed this book for my college newspaper when it came out in 1963. At that time it was the definitive attempt to explain how Appalachia got to be the way it is. It still is! This book is on everyone's list of the ten, five, three . . . books to read about our region. It is somewhat controversial. Harry Caudill (1922-1990) is more a straight-shooter than an Appalachian chauvinist, and the easiest way to piss somebody off is to tell the truth on them.  He does veer off onto some shaky ground briefly. Of course people from families who stayed in the region are going to be offended by his "brain drain" comments, for example. And he was more of a "big picture" man than a "details" person. For example he once sent me a post card - addressed simply to "George Brosi, Bookseller, Berea, Kentucky" - inquiring if I had a copy of the new book, "Civilizing the Hillbilly." He meant David Whisnant's Modernizing the Mountaineer.  But this book as a whole clearly stands as an important and lasting