When this book came out in 1988 it was greeted with awe and great appreciation. Then the field of Appalachian Studies was in its infancy, and this book set a new standard of intellectual rigor and inter discipline scope. The publisher, UNC Press, sums it up cogently and accurately: "Waller argues that the legendary feud was not an outgrowth of an inherently violent mountain culture but rather one manifestation of a contest for social and economic control between local people and outside industrial capitalists -- the Hatfields were defending community autonomy while the McCoys were allied with the forces of industrial capitalism. Profiling the colorful feudists "Devil Anse" Hatfield, "Old Ranel" McCoy, "Bad" Frank Phillips, and the ill-fated lovers Roseanna McCoy and Johnse Hatfield, Waller illustrates how Appalachians both shaped and responded to the new economic and social order."
Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press, 1988. 313 pages with and Index, Bibliography, Notes, Appendixes, maps, tables, and photos. Trade paperback.