This collection is devoted to international communication history. Although researchers have long produced work related to this area, this special issue marks the first treatment of the subject as a distinct body of knowledge and area of inquiry. The subject matter of these five articles spans approximately a century, with the first focusing on the 1884 conference on international time reckoning and the last focusing on a collective memory of the 1960s and 1970s war in Vietnam. The articles reflect shifting paradigms in multiple realms--international affairs, theoretical frameworks, types of questions posed--and thus, by their nature, point up the richness of areas awaiting study.

Hazel Dickens was an Appalachian singer and songwriter known for her superb musicianship, feminist country songs, union anthems, and blue-collar laments. Growing up in a West Virginia coal mining community, she drew on the mountain music and repertoire of her family and neighbors when establishing her own vibrant and powerful vocal style that is a trademark in old-time, bluegrass, and traditional country circles. Working Girl Blues presents forty original songs that Hazel Dickens wrote about coal mining, labor issues, personal relationships, and her life and family in Appalachia. Conveying sensitivity, determination, and feistiness, Dickens comments on each song, explaining how she came to write them and what they meant and continue to mean to her. Bill C. Malone's introduction traces Dickens's life, musical career, and development as a songwriter, In addition, Working Girl Blues features forty-one illustrations and a detailed discography of Dickens's commercial recordings.