Spencer's letters carry us through the whole experience, from being wounded at South Mills, North Carolina, to the “Chicimocomico Races” on Roanoke Island to collecting seashells at Nags Head, and the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse. Join Alva in a journey through his letters to his beloved “Maggie.”

Spencer's letters carry us through the whole experience, from being wounded at South Mills, North Carolina, to the “Chicimocomico Races” on Roanoke Island to collecting seashells at Nags Head, and the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse. Join Alva in a journey through his letters to his beloved “Maggie.”

Turkic people have been migrating to America for many centuries, but this significant influx has been largely unrecognized. In From Anatolia to Appalachia, Scolnick and Kennedy investigate selected aspects of the population movements.

How They Shine is the first book of its kind—a book about books with Melungeon characters. Its clear, readable presentation invites scholarly attention from a variety of disciplines, lay readers, residents of Appalachia, and readers who love good books that ask an interesting question: “Why would someone choose to write about Melungeons?”

Hirschman's research indicates the earliest American settlers were of Mediterranean extraction, and of a Jewish or Muslim religious persuasion. Sometimes called “Melungeons,” these early settlers were among the earliest nonnative “Americans” to live in the Carolinas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia, perhaps including Daniel Boone, John Sevier, Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, and Andrew Jackson.

North from the Mountains is the first substantive study of the Carmel Melungeon settlement since 1950. Tracing their history from about 1700, this book contains extensive firsthand information to be found in no other source, and relates the Carmel population to the Melungeons and similar mixed-blood populations originating in the Mid-Atlantic coastal region.

The Electronic Front Porch examines the arrival of radio and television in Appalachia, and the Internet's role in the Melungeon community. It contributes to a variety of disciplines, including media, Appalachian, and popular culture studies, in addition to oral, Southern, and American history.

The Melungeons shares the story of a people ravaged, and nearly destroyed, by the senseless excesses of racism and genocide, a people who were, a century ad a half later, crushed beneath the violent onslaught of unbridled Anglo jingoism. Recognizing the truth of who the Melungeons were, and are, will redefine our view of the settlement of this nation, and, more to the point, of our own self-identity. It will also render incomplete and possibly obsolete much of what has been written and preserved about our Southern ethnic heritage.

Just a century ago, while specialized practices such as farming, preserving food, hunting, gathering, and distilling ensured survival in the unforgiving mountain environment, most Melungeons could neither read nor write and refused to see those skills as part of a cultural imperative. In the twenty-first century, taking reading and writing for granted, Melungeon descendants are exploring their ethnic identity by creating websites and participating in listserv discussions.

Walking toward the Sunset is a historical examination of the Melungeons, a mixed-race group predominantly in southern Appalachia. Author Wayne Winkler reviews theories about the Melungeons, compares the Melungeons with other mixed-race groups, and incorporates the latest scientific research to present a comprehensive portrait.