Night Comes to Cumberlands

This is an excellent book. Gives a lot of great detailed information on the history of that era.

Upon reading this book, I was both sadden and distraught by the words that were so eloquently written on the darkened pages of my newly purchased "old" book, as my friends call them. A professor at Eastern Kentucky University suggested that I read the work, and as a native of Harlan County I have often felt pride and dismay over my home and the people that lived there with me during my youth. This book both displays powerfully the pride and dismay of the region that if written without geographical descriptors would have read as though it was written about a third-world country as an expose that are popularized by primetime news magazine programs. This book is a "MUST READ" for everyone willing to look at both the positive and negative of a capitalistic society.

This book would easily serve as an excellent history book for 8th graders living in and near south-eastern Kentucky. It doesn't read as easily as Caudill's stories and tales about the people and politics of this region, but it is valuable for anyone who wants to know about his or her history and why it happened the way it did. Sometimes sad and depressing but still factual and truthful, this book will define the area and its people for many years to come.

I read this book years ago and have never forgotten it. The author knows his subject well, both from research and experience. It is factually sound and insightful but also very personal. The people who settled the hill country of eastern Kentucky, eastern Tennessee, West Virginia, and parts of Ohio, Georgia, Pennsylvania and the Carolinas are often placed outside the mainstream of American society, by themselves and by others. Caudill explains very clearly their origins and history with sympathy and understanding. I didn't find the book necessarily depressing, although most people will feel at least some outrage, but I wasn't too surprised to learn that the author eventually committed suicide