“Jeff Biggers’s inspiring book should be a best seller immediately. It is a ‘how-to’ book—how to assert your fundamental rights and how to speak out in the manner of the American Revolution footsloggers, whose descendants they are. Read it and your faltering hopes will rise.” --Studs Terkel

"A masterpiece of popular history...revelations abound.”—Citizens-Times, North Carolina

"Biggers has done something more effectively than any other since Appalachian activist Harry M. Caudill penned his 1963 call to action, Night Comes to the Cumberlands.  Biggers has brought the Appalachian historical experience to a wide audience."--The Journal of Southern History

Read an excerpt in The Atlantic: "Appalachian Hardship."

Listen to an interview on NPR's All Things Considered: "Celebrating the History of Appalachia."

Read an excerpt in The Chronicle of Higher Education: "They Came Down From These Hills."

Read an interview in the Mountain XPress: "From these mountains."

"A rich narrative...a respectful ode.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"Biggers' book educates us as to just how biased and ignorant we really are about this region and its rich legacy of cultural, political, and intellectual pioneers...full of historical insights.”—San Antonio Express-News

“Jeff Biggers opens a new window on the complex history of the region called Appalachia. He takes a hard but affectionate look at both the myths and the facts, and what he finds is by turns sobering and thrilling. Drawing on the contradictions, layers, and range of what is known as mountain culture, he shows that nothing is quite what it seems, and that to understand American history it is essential to know Appalachian history. Biggers tells his story with verve and vivid detail, a story that will at once provoke and inspire.”—Robert Morgan, author of Boone, Gap Creek

"A book that makes me proud of my East Tennessee roots and helps me understand why my well-educated and world-traveled family never left." --Richmond Times Dispatch

"The richness of multicultural Appalachia has never been expressed so convincingly. By the book's end, the pattern of tracing influence to actualization, teacher to student, cultural stereotype to cultural originality and vitality becomes a seamless and powerful narrative..."--Appalachian Heritage