Made famous in the 1976 documentary Harlan County USA, this pocket
of Appalachian coal country has been home to generations of
miners-and to some of the most bitter labor battles of the 20th
century. It has also produced a rich tradition of protest songs and
a wealth of fascinating culture and custom that has remained
largely undiscovered by outsiders, until now. They Say in Harlan
County is not a book about coal miners so much as a dialogue in
which more than 150 Harlan County women and men tell the story of
their region, from pioneer times through the dramatic strikes of
the 1930s and '70s, up to the present. Alessandro Portelli, one of
the giants of the oral history movement, draws on 25 years of
original interviews to take readers into the mines and inside the
lives of those who work, suffer, and often die in them-from black
lung, falling rock, suffocation, or simply from work that can be
literally backbreaking. The book is structured as a vivid montage
of all these voices-stoic, outraged, grief-stricken,
defiant-skillfully interwoven with documents from archives,
newspapers, literary works, and the author's own participating and
critical voice. Portelli uncovers the whole history and memory of
the United States in this one symbolic place, through settlement,
civil war, slavery, industrialization, immigration, labor conflict,
technological change, migration, strip mining, environmental and
social crises, and resistance. And as hot-button issues like
mountain-top removal and the use of "clean coal" continue to hit
the news, the history of Harlan County-especially as seen through
the eyes of those who lived it-is becoming increasingly important.
With rare emotional immediacy, gripping narratives, and
unforgettable characters, They Say in Harlan County tells the real
story of a culture, the resilience of its people, and the human
costs of coal mining.
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