Summary: Night Comes To The Cumberlands

Smith 01

Peter Smith
Professor Stone
HUM 202
26 JAN 2013
Night Comes to the Cumberlands-Book Review Essay

I recently read a book titled “Night Comes to the Cumberlands” written by a man named Harry M. Caudill. I chose this book for a couple of different reasons. The first is because after reviewing the book, I realized it was very thorough in how it covered the plight of the Appalachia people, it also goes into detail about how many different events from when his grandfather’s grandfather, James Caudill, built his cabin in 1792, to the current state of events when the book was written in 1962. At the time it was first published in 1962, it seemed to appeal to the American peoples’ conscience so much that it actually prompted the
He says that he was inspired to write the book in 1960, when he served as a commencement speaker at an 8th grade coal camp school, and noted the bitter irony of the singing of "America the Beautiful" against the backdrop of utter poverty and desolation. He chronicles the area's history from the original settlement by the white man who came over the mountains from the coast, and advanced no further, settling in "for the duration. When the Civil War came, it literally pitted brother against brother, father against son, as the natives left these valleys to fight for their respective sides. After the war, the vendettas and the feuds continued, personified by the "Hatfields vs. McCoys." Caudill talks in his book about the feuds where in one county
Writing for a 300-year span of time, he does not spare the rough, the crude, the greedy and the mean. He uses an historical approach combining the economic, the political, the sociological, the psychological and the anthropological. There is much information that only a native like Caudill himself could have gathered from family, friends and the hills themselves. A fine lawyer by profession, he was even better as a storyteller. Caudill knew as much about the problems of this part of Appalachia as anyone and could accurately describe its symptoms. However, in terms of corrective measures, his prescriptions for cure fall largely off the mark. Solutions to the chronic, severe and long-standing problems in this region of the country are not easy and not fast. The coal counties in southern Appalachians are still losing population. Mountain top removal and valley fills, a type of coal mining just starting when Caudill completed his book are destroying tens of thousands of acres of southern hardwood forest. The landscape is permanently altered and will never recover after this type of mining has taken place. I’m sure if Caudill were around today, he would have more than enough material to write a book on this subject