Long viewed as a problem in other countries, the ownership of land and resources is becoming an issue of mounting concern in the United States. Nowhere has it surfaced more dramatically than in the southern Appalachians where the exploitation of timber and mineral resources has been recently aggravated by the ravages of strip-mining and flash floods. This landmark study of the mountain region documents for the first time the full scale and extent of the ownership and control of the region's land and resources and shows in a compelling, yet non-polemical fashion the relationship between this control and conditions affecting the lives of the region's people. Begun in 1978 and extending through 1980, this survey of land ownership is notable for the magnitude of its coverage. It embraces six states of the southern Appalachian region -- Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Alabama. From these states the research team selected 80 counties, and within those counties field workers documented the ownership of over 55,000 parcels of property, totaling over 20 million acres of land and mineral rights.The survey is equally significant for its systematic investigation of the relations between ownership and conditions within Appalachian communities. Researchers compiled data on 100 socioeconomic indicators and correlated these with the ownership of land and mineral rights. The findings of the survey form a generally dark picture of the region -- local governments struggling to provide needed services on tax revenues that are at once inadequate and inequitable; economic development and diversification stifled; increasing loss of farmland, a traditional source of subsistence in the region. Most evident perhaps is the adverse effect upon housing resulting from corporate ownership and land speculation. Nor is the trend toward greater conglomerate ownership of energy resources, the expansion of absentee ownership into new areas, and the search for new mineral and energy sources encouraging.Who Owns Appalachia? will be an enduring resource for all those interested in this region and its problems. It is, moreover, both a model and a document for social and economic concerns likely to be of critical importance for the entire nation.

Wilson Wyatt was Jack Kennedy's presidential emissary to Sukarno in a crisis that might have cost the West the oil of the East Indies and lost Indonesia to the Communist orbit. He headed a mission to North Africa during World War II, managed Adlai Stevenson's presidential campaign, and played varied roles on stage and behind the scenes at seven Democratic conventions. He helped guide Kentucky's quiet governmental revolution in the Combs-Wyatt administration, served as wartime mayor of Louisville, launched the nation's postwar housing program under Harry Truman, and today is a leader in Louisville's renaissance. Wyatt's candid and informal memoir offers many revealing vignettes of the public figures of the past fifty years -- Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Alben Barkley, Sukarno of Indonesia, Trygve Lie of the United Nations, and a variety of others on the state and national scene. Three chapters are devoted to Adlai E. Stevenson -- the man, the public figure, his presidential campaigns, and his place in the political life of America.

The apparently accelerating arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union and the precarious political conditions existing in many parts of the world have given rise to new anxiety about the possibility of military confrontation between the superpowers. Despite the fateful nature of the risk, we have little knowledge, as Jack S. Levy has pointed out, "of the conditions, processes, and events which might combine to generate such a calamity. " No empirically confirmed theory of the causes of war exists, and the hypotheses -- often contradictory -- that have been proposed remain untested.As a step toward the formulation of a theory of the causes of war that can be tested against historical experience, Levy has developed a unique data base that will serve as an invaluable resource for students of international conflict in coming years. War in the Modern Great Power System provides a much-needed perspective on the major wars of the past. In this thorough and systematic study, Levy carefully defines the Great Power concept and identifies the Great Powers and their international wars since the late fifteenth century. The resulting compilation of war data is unique because of its five-century span and its focus on a well-defined set of Great Powers.Turning to a quantitative analysis of the characteristics, patterns, and trends in war, Levy demonstrates that although wars between the Great Powers have become increasingly serious in every respect but duration over the last five hundred years, their frequency has diminished. He rejects the popular view that the twentieth century has been the most warlike on record, and he demonstrates that it instead constitutes a return to the historical norm after the exceptionally peaceful nineteenth century. Applying his data to the question whether war is "contagious," he finds that the likelihood of war is indeed highest when another war is under way, but that this contagious effect disappears after the first war is over. Contrary to the popular "war-weariness" theory, he finds no evidence that war generates an aversion to subsequent war.This study, extending the scientific analysis of war back over five centuries of international history, constitutes a major contribution to our knowledge of international conflict.

This provocative study suggests that Pater, usually thought of as a florid prose stylist and second-rate adjunct to the Esthetic Movement, is, in reality, an articulate prophet of the twentieth century. Pater's work, the book indicates, shows a consistent concern with the transmission of humanism from one generation to the next through the medium of art. The link in that transmission is the human image in a milieu -- the appearance of man as manifested in painting, sculpture, prose, poetry, or drama. Pater's fiction, as well as his criticism, strives to create a milieu, extracting both what is unique and what is constant from that milieu. His treatment of humanism has seemed introverted, bizarre, almost obsessional, but he prefigured the concerns of such writers as Joyce and Yeats, and his esthetic has become an accepted part of our mid-twentieth century intellectual structure.

This lucid study assesses Page's career as ambassador to Great Britain from 1913 to 1918. It reconsiders the famous publisher's impact on American diplomacy through an examination of British-American relations in that troubled period. Page, a friend of Woodrow Wilson and an intense Anglophile, devoted his major efforts to bringing the United States into the war on the side of the Allies and to cementing Anglo-American friendship. The book brings to bear information from all pertinent manuscript collections in the United States and introduces new information on British-American relations from recently-opened documents in British Foreign Office Archives.Written in a clear and lively style, the book revises earlier interpretations of the importance of Page's ambassadorial career, placing it in balance perspective.

During the years before World War II, hundreds of traditional musicians were sought out by commercial record companies, brought to New York or into local -- often makeshift -- studios, to cut recordings that would be marketed as "race" and "hillbilly" music. Virginia was home to scores of these performers, several of whom were to become internationally known. Among them were the Carter Family, the Golden Gate Quartet, Charlie Poole, and the Stoneman Family, whose music has touched millions of listeners far beyond the confines of the Old Dominion. It is this historically important body of recordings from this unique period that forms the focus of Kip Lornell's study. In it he combines biographical sketches and bibliographies of the artists and groups with comprehensive discographies of each, covering not only the original 78-rpm issues but also American and foreign long-play releases. The entries incorporate new primary research and contemporary interviews with veterans of early recording sessions. Numerous vintage photographs are also included, some reproduced here for the first time.

George Herbert has always been regarded as a man of singular piety and a poet of uncommon technical ability. Until recent times, however, he was usually thought to have written prosodically ingenious but conceptually thin verse. Mary Ellen Rickey, through a close examination of Herbert's poetry, reveals the high concentration of ideas in his verse and the richness of his imagery.

Although the term national interest has long been used in reference to the foreign policy goals of nations, there has been no generally agreed upon definition of the concept; as a result, Donald E. Nuechterlein contends, there has been a tendency for foreign policy to be determined by institutional prejudice and past policy rather than by a systematic assessment of national interests. By what criterion does a President decide that a given interest is or is not vital-that is, whether he must contemplate defending it by force if other measures fail? In this study Nuechterlein offers a new conceptual framework for the analysis of foreign policy decisions; resting on more precise definitions and distinguishing among the degrees of interest that the United States perceives in the range of foreign policy issues it faces. He also deals with the constitutional problem of checks and balances between the Presidency and Congress in setting the goals of foreign policy, and the influence of private interest groups and the media on the definition of national interest. Underlining the need for constant reassessment of priorities in a rapidly changing international environment, Nuechterlein illustrates his analysis by drawing on the American experience in foreign affairs since World War II.A case study of the American involvement in Southeast Asia describes how six presidents, beginning with Franklin Roosevelt, viewed United States interests there and the conclusions each drew in terms of policy tools to defend those interests in Vietnam. Finally, he assesses what the future vital interests of the United States are likely to be in light of the shifting balance of world power, and the growing importance of international economics.

According to the scant historical records available, Uncle Bud Long, his daughter Janey, and her son Frankie lived near Clark's Landing, Kentucky, for about twenty years early in this century. Mr. Clarke has collected the tales of the Longs' strange ways from old-time residents of the community, both those who knew the Longs and those who inherited the stories by word of mouth. Here he skillfully weaves them into a loose narrative and, in addition, analyzes the ways in which the anecdotes have been transmuted in the process of retelling.This analysis of the stories of Uncle Bud reveals much about the delicate process by which the oral folk tradition grows and thrives. Though at first glance these fragmentary anecdotes hardly seem to constitute a legend,

The creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was one of the most important accomplishments of American diplomacy in countering the Soviet threat during the early days of the Cold War. Why and how such a reversal of a 150-year nonalignment policy by the United States was brought about, and how the goals of the treaty became a reality, are questions addressed here by a leading scholar of NATO.The importance of restoring Europe to strength and stability in the post-World War II years was as obvious to America as to its allies, but the means of achieving that goal were far from clear. The problem for European statesmen was how to secure much- needed American economic and military aid without sacrificing political independence. For American policymakers, in contrast, a degree of American control was seen as an essential quid pro quo. As Mr. Kaplan shows, the lengthy negotiations of 1947 and 1948 were chiefly concerned with reconciling these opposing views.For the Truman administration, the difficulties of achieving a treaty acceptable to the allies were matched by those of winning its acceptance by Congress and the public. Many Americans saw such an "entangling alliance" as a threat not only to American security but to the viability of the United Nations. Mr. Kaplan demonstrates the tortuous course of the debate on the treaty and the pivotal role of the communist invasion of South Korea in its ultimate approval.This authoritative study offers a timely reevaluation of the origins of an alliance that continues to play a critical role in the balance of power and in the prospects for world peace.

On August 1, 1914, the German and Austro-Hungarian empires stood on the brink of the greatest war history had known. Their great need was for alliances that would provide manpower and defense of their borders. In only one direction could these be sought -- the Balkan Peninsula. Yet disagreements between foreign officers and high commands increased the difficulty of establishing such alliances. Austrian caution continually clashed with German persistence, for the expansionist drives of the Balkan powers threatened the monarchy's own ambitions.The differences between the two allies were smoothed over in the case of Turkey and Bulgaria, but the ultimate diplomatic failure in Rumania produced much rancor.The author's examination of little known documents in the German and Austrian archives brings to light details of an often tortured relationship. The personalities of those who shaped the course of the war and the playing off of power against power are here clearly revealed.

When the private papers of Millard Fillmore, thought to have been destroyed in 1889, were discovered they proved to include a large number of letters to Fillmore from Dorothea Dix, the renowned crusader for the humane treatment of the insane. Almost simultaneously, the letters of Fillmore to Dix, which had lain forgotten in a private collection since 1887, became available.Thus overnight a correspondence of more than a hundred and fifty letters, spanning nearly twenty years, opened new perspectives upon two prominent Americans whose friendship was known to few during their lifetimes and had long been forgotten by historians. All the extant correspondence between the thirteenth President of the United States and the humanitarian reformer is published here for the first time. Charles M. Snyder provides an illuminating background on the principles and a running commentary on the events that shaped their lives and their relationship.The Lady & the President provides a wealth of raw material for a reinterpretation of these two neglected figures, offering new insights into their warm personal relations, their roles as national leaders, and the perilous times in which they lived.

In 1976 a dozen hopeful young Mexican dramatists -- most of them studying with Emilio Carballido -- began staging plays, primarily in small, out-of-the-way theater, and publishing them, mostly in university magazines with limited distribution. Until now, more than twenty years later, there has been no comprehensive study devoted either to this original group of writers or to those who followed in the same generation, and no central source of information about them or their production. Although they continue to produce more plays every year, they represent a lost generation. Ronald Burgess now offers the first extensive study of this group of playwrights and their work. Included is discussion of over 200 plays by more than 40 writers, but the work of nine key playwrights is examined in depth. Most of these dramatists concern themselves with the state of Mexico today, reacting to current social conditions with depictions ranging from violence to guarded hope to anguished hopelessness. Many look to their nation's history and culture for explanations.In his illuminating study, Burgess places this theatrical generation in the context of contemporary Mexican society and literature, employing a wide variety of analytic approaches to highlight essential characteristics of these representative authors.

Focusing on style as a means of thematic expression, Donald A. Ringe in this study examines in detail the affinities that exist between the paintings of the Hudson River school and the works of William Cullen Bryant, Washington Irving, and James Fenimore Cooper. The emphasis on physical description of nature that characterizes the work of these writers, he finds, is not simply an imitation of European models, nor is it merely nonfunctional decoration. Rather, he demonstrates that the authors' concern with description of the physical world derives from the late eighteenth-century theory of knowledge, and specifically from the concepts of the Scottish Common Sense school of philosophy.Recognizing the differing limitations and opportunities presented by the media in which these two groups of artists worked, Ringe traces deeper parallels in their treatment of spatial and temporal relationships. Having at their disposal the suggestive powers of language, the writers succeeded in making of the pictorial mode an effective means of expressing moral and intellectual themes of fundamental concern to the nineteenth-century American. A full understanding of this characteristic mode of expression, Ringe concludes, is essential to accurate interpretation of the literary works of the first generation of American romantics.

In the symbolic language of ballads, a lady's costly dress tells of the beauty of the body beneath it or of the wearer's happiness; a lost hawk or hound foreshadows the hunter's fate long before the plot reaches a turning point. In her original and far-reaching study of such familiar narrative elements, Edith Randam Rogers adds much to our understanding of poetic expression in the ballad tradition.In focusing on individual motifs as they appear in different ballads, different languages, and different periods, Rogers proves the existence of a reliable lingua franca of symbolism in European balladry. Lines or even whole stanzas that have defied interpretation often come to life when the reader is aware of the meaning of a particular motif in such an international vocabulary of images. Thus this book makes available important new critical tools sure to have significant results for ballad scholarship.

In this flavorful and perceptive study of the American orator, Barnet Baskerville makes an inquiry into American attitudes toward orators and oratory and the reflection of these attitudes in speaking practices. He examines the role of the orator in society and the kinds or qualities of oratory that were dominant in each period of American history, and he looks into the nature and importance of oratory as perceived by audiences and by speakers themselves. By examining this "public image" of the orator, the author is able to tell us much about the people who drew that image.