In 1971, a young journalist from the Blue Ridge Mountains of
Carroll County, Virginia published Annihilating the Hillbilly -
a manifesto against the stereotyping that justified Appalachia's
exploitation. Half a century before Hillbilly Elegy put the wrong
story in front of millions of readers, James Branscome was already
telling the right one.
Annihilating the Hillbilly Redux brings together five decades of
investigative journalism by one of Appalachia's most consistent and
credible voices, with chapters drawn from the Mountain Eagle of
Whitesburg, Kentucky (where Branscome has been a contributor since
1973), the Washington Post , American Heritage , the New York Times
Magazine , Business Week , Southern Exposure , the Daily Yonder ,
Cardinal News , the Kentucky Lantern , and West Virginia Watch .
The book documents what others ignored: the deliberate
impoverishment of a people and the systematic extraction of
their wealth by industries, agencies, and institutions that claimed
to be helping them. Its thirty-seven chapters cover the mythologies
that justified exploitation, from John Fox Jr. through The Beverly
Hillbillies to J.D. Vance; the migration crisis that has emptied
the sixty-county Central Appalachian coalfield region; the Tennessee
Valley Authority's transformation from New Deal idealist to the
nation's largest strip-mine coal consumer; the Appalachian Regional
Commission's structural underinvestment; and the data-center industrial
complex now establishing itself on former mine land.
Unlike many critiques of Appalachian conditions, the book moves
beyond diagnosis to propose a serious policy framework for reversing
the depopulation crisis: an Ascend Central Appalachia talent-attraction
program, a contemporary Appalachian Homestead Act, and a time-limited
Universal Basic Income experiment scaled to the region's challenges.
Praise for Annihilating the Hillbilly Redux :
"From Appalachian migration to hog castration, this book contains
the wisdom (and humor) of a lifetime. Jim Branscome has been a
guide, teacher and prophet for all of us who want to better know
the eastern mountains."
- Bill Bishop, author of The Big Sort and co-founder of
The Daily Yonder
"No other journalist has covered the Appalachian odyssey for as
long and with as much insight as James Branscome. This book is
a must read for anyone who wants to understand Appalachia's past
and current struggles."
- Ronald D. Eller, author of Uneven Ground: Appalachia Since 1945
"Appalachia is America's least understood major region. Jim
Branscome has a deep knowledge of it, a firm independence, and
an understanding of how the world works - and what it has done
to Appalachia, and its unrealized potential."
- Al Cross, founding director, Institute for Rural Journalism,
University of Kentucky
"He has told a story the 'established press' has, to its shame,
neglected to tell. Jim Branscome knows the Southern Appalachians
as few do."
- Harry M. Caudill, author of Night Comes to the Cumberlands , 1977
