Kategoria BISAC: Social Science >> Sociology - Rural

In this rousing examination of contemporary American male identity, acclaimed author and journalist Elizabeth Gilbert explores the fascinating true story of Eustace Conway. In 1977, at the age of seventeen, Conway left his family's comfortable suburban home to move to the Appalachian Mountains. For more than two decades he has lived there, making fire with sticks, wearing skins from animals he has trapped, and trying to convince...

Rural Pennsylvania's landscapes are evocative, richly textured testimonies to the lives and skills of generations of builders--architects as well as local builders and craft workers. Farmhouses and barns, silos and fences, even field patterns attest to how residents over the years have had a sense of place that was not only functional but also comfortable and aesthetically appropriate for the time. From Sugar Camps to Star Barns tells the story of one such place, a landscape that evolved in southwestern Pennsylvania's Somerset County.

Sally McMurry traces the rural life and...

Rural masculinity is hardly a typical topic for a book. There is something unexpected, faintly disturbing, even humorous about investigating that which has long been seen and yet so often overlooked. But the ways in which we think about and socially organize masculinity are of great significance in the lives of both men and women. In Country Boys we also see that masculinity is no less significant in rural life than in urban life.

The essays in this volume offer much-needed insight into the myths and stereotypes as well as the reality of the lives of rural men....

The story of deer management in Pennsylvania is as complex as it is controversial. From the disappearance of deer in Pennsylvania forests at the beginning of the twentieth century to the population explosion that occurred in the latter half of the century, the balance between herd size and a healthy forest has long been a difficult one. In Deer Wars, Bob Frye examines this controversy and the effect that herd management has had on all of the citizens of Pennsylvania; farmers managing deer invasions and property rights, hunters dealing with changing herd densities and ever-complex...

Much has been written over the years about life in the coal mines of Appalachia. Not surprisingly, attention has focused mainly on the experiences of male miners. In Daughters of the Mountain, Suzanne Tallichet introduces us to a cohort of women miners at a large underground coal mine in southern West Virginia, where women entered the workforce in the late 1970s after mining jobs began opening up for women throughout the Appalachian coalfields.

Tallichet's work goes beyond anecdotal evidence to provide complex and penetrating analyses of qualitative data. Based on in-depth...

Community visioning and strategic planning programs have become increasingly important in recent years as local governments in rural areas have searched for innovative ways to revitalize their local economies or manage population growth. A panel of experts describes local government programs in ten states. They also evaluate the effectiveness in reaching the vision and objective set forth in these programs. The authors examine the main components of each program and offer insights into factors contributing to its success. Major attention is paid to the need for social capital,...