Beyond the mountains : commodifying Appalachian environments / Drew A. Swanson.

"Beyond the Mountains explore the ways in which Appalachia so often served as a laboratory for the exploration and practice of American conceptions of nature. The region served alternately as frontier, wilderness, rural hinterland, a region of backward agriculture, a bastion of yeoman farmers, and a place to experiment with modernization. In these various takes on the southern mountains, scattered across time and space, both mountain residents and outsiders consistently believed that the region's environment made Appalachia distinctive, for better or worse"-- Provided by publisher

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: a constant Arcadia -- Leather: the deerskin trade in the southern mountains -- Plants: botanical collectors and the roots of Appalachian identity -- Gold: the rise, fall, and rebirth of southern gold mining -- Salt: Saltville's Civil War -- Transportation: Roanoke, railroads, and Appalachia on the move -- Scenery: recreation and tourism on Grandfather Mountain -- Tobacco: making ground for an international crop -- Power: building an atomic Appalachia in east Tennessee -- Coal: sludge ponds and vanishing mountains -- Epilogue: The adelgid and the salamander.

Print version record.

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