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The Hatfield-McCoy feud has long been the most famous vendetta of the southern Appalachians. Over the years it has become encrusted with myth and error. Scores of writers have produced accounts of it, but few have made any real effort to separate fact from fiction. Novelists, motion picture producers, television script writers, and others have sensationalized events that needed no embellishment.
Using court records, public documents, official correspondence, and other documentary evident, Otis K. Rice presents an account that frees, as much as possible, fact from fiction, event from legend. He weighs the evidence carefully, avoiding the partisanship and the attitude of condescension and condemnation that have characterized many of the writings concerning the feud.
He sets the feud in the social, political, economic, and cultural context of eastern Kentucky and southwestern West Virginia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By examining the legacy of the Civil War, the weakness of institutions such as the church and education system, the exaggerated importance of family, the impotence of the law, and the isolation of the mountain folk, Rice gives new meaning to the origins and progress of the feud. These conditions help explain why the Hatfield and McCoy families, which have produced so many fine citizens, could engage in such a bitter and prolonged vendetta
| Price | Condition | Delivery | Seller | Action |
| $99.99 | Digital |
| WonderClub |
Steven Boslau
reviewed The Hatfields and the McCoys on June 21, 2013
The Hatfields and the McCoys
"The Hatfields & The McCoys" -- There are no heroes in this book.
Moreover, this is not "Romeo & Juliet." Efforts to portray these families as part of a story with a romantic theme are plain stupid. There is no romance or soul in this story or in this book. What occurred between these two families between the 1860s and the beginning of the 1890s is a story of brutality, intimidation, murder, deceit and levels of ugliness almost impossible to describe or consider. Further, there are not even any likable or admirable characters in the Hatfield-McCoy history.
The beauty of "The Hatfields & The McCoys" is you have a high level of confidence in the author's research and narrative, giving an accounting of the feud and dismissing the rumors and myths that have been created over time. The challenge of the book is to keep straight all the various Hatfields, McCoys, cousins (close, distant and otherwise), in-laws, hangers-on, assorted law enforcement and involved politicians. It's no small challenge and is reminiscent of keeping track of the characters in Russian novels.
Author Otis K. Rice recounts the long history of the vendetta between the two families and whether it started over a lost/stolen pig or was the result of split loyalties as a result of the American Civil War, it doesn't matter. The Hatfields of West Virginia and the McCoys of Kentucky killed on purpose and killed on whim. Professor Rice pays passing attention to the involvement of alcohol in the killings but it played a role in many of the fatal events.
Perhaps the most surprising elements of the book concern what law enforcement, the courts and the political arms of the two states did and did not do to stop the violence. Just about every official branch of government of the two states hid behind legalisms to avoid confronting the families.
"The Hatfields & The McCoys" is an easy read (despite the challenges of keeping track of everyone) if you like this sort of early American feud history. It's not likely that it will add much to your party conversation.
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Add The Hatfields and the McCoys, The Hatfield-McCoy feud has long been the most famous vendetta of the southern Appalachians. Over the years it has become encrusted with myth and error. Scores of writers have produced accounts of it, but few have made any real effort to separate fact fro, The Hatfields and the McCoys to your collection on WonderClub |
