Reviews for Feud: Hatfields, McCoys, and Social Change in Appalachia, 1860-1900

The average rating for Feud: Hatfields, McCoys, and Social Change in Appalachia, 1860-1900 based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2007-08-29 00:00:00 Brian Sands A thoughtful, well-written history that avoids the mountaineer stereotype. It puts the famous feud into the context of Kentucky/West Virginia politics and shows how the conflict was exacerbated by economic pressures (timber, railroads, coal) that were transforming the Tug River Valley in the latter decades of the 19th Century.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-11-18 00:00:00 Davina Kaplan Terrific! I was so pleased to see a serious analysis of America's most famous feud, and I was even more pleased to see that Waller's analysis boils down to what should be obvious, on a much grander scale, by now: people only kill each other in any sort of collective fashion over access to resources. None of that irrational/petty/backwards/violent hillbillies nonsense. As someone who was born in West Virginia, I was interested to see that Waller seemed so partial to Devil Anse and the other Hatfields, and I didn't terribly mind that she seemed to take that side. It would, however, be interesting to read another history written from a perspective more sympathetic to the McCoys and Kentucky.