Cades Cove: The Life and Death of a Southern Appalachian Community, 1818-1937

Rating:
Summary: A must read for those interested in Appalachian history!
Review: After a trip to Cades Cove and Townsend to research my family tree I was intrigued by the area. Mr. Dunn's work on Cades Cove presents the history of the area in a well-researched yet enjoyable manner. I read the book in a sitting. I would really like to know more about the Chestnut Flats area!

Rating:
Summary: Cades Cove
Review: I have visited Cades Cove over 10 times and still find something interesting on each trip. This book was extremely insightful because I actually knew many of the names in the book and the places discussed. If you've never been to the area, you may find the book less insightful though. I love Cades Cove, and I loved this book.

Rating:
Summary: Cades Cove
Review: I have visited Cades Cove over 10 times and still find something interesting on each trip. This book was extremely insightful because I actually knew many of the names in the book and the places discussed. If you've never been to the area, you may find the book less insightful though. I love Cades Cove, and I loved this book.

Rating:
Summary: The most accurate account yet of Cades Cove
Review: I've long been interested in Cades Cove history. As a native East Tennessean, I grew up with the many stories in legends that came from the area. Dunn, grandson of the last man to leave the cove, uses town records and family stories to paint a vivid account of life in the area. Dunn addresses many of the misconceptions about the town and shows a town of people that struggled from the town's beginning to the forced withdrawal to build the Great Smokies National Park. This book will most appeal to scholars, but anyone interested in Southern history would also enjoy it. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: A model community history
Review: In opposition to Horace Kephart, Our Southern Highlanders (1913), Dunn correctly argues that leadership and a sense of community was strong in Cades Cove and that development there was not idiosyncratic but followed regional patterns. The chaos that accompanied the Civil War proved to be the watershed that burned "diversity and innovation" (145) from the Cove. Yet even so, family life at the turn of the century "was largely indistinguishable from that of other rural Tennesseans." (200)

Although the book is well researched and nicely written, the chapters seem to have been composed independently, which results in some repetition. Also a better acquaintance with the history of American religion would have limited the author's surprise at progressivism and religious fundamentalism walking hand-in-hand.