Mountains on the Market

"Mountains on the Market is an outstanding work of interest to historians of many different specialties. There are few books that cover such a long time frame but remain readable, coherent, and contextually reflexive. Southernists will now refer to this book first in thinking about the historical development of the extractive industries, their impact on the environment, and what it tells us about the South."—David Brown, coauthor of Race in the American South: From Slavery to Civil Rights

"Mountains on the Market is an important step forward in the rewriting of southern economic and social history in a way that effectively ties all dimensions of the evolving capitalist system to the larger international and global processes. Hall's book demonstrates an originality that firmly situates it at the cutting edge of historical writing on the U.S. South."—Susanna Delfino, coeditor of Global Perspectives on Industrial Transformation in the American South

"Randal Hall advances our understanding of the commercialization and exploitation of the southern highlands' mineral resources in significant new ways in this multi-faceted study of Virginia's New River Valley. As conceptually sophisticated as it is chronologically vast, Hall forces us to rethink the prospects, processes and pace of market forces as they evolved over two and a half centuries. This is a landmark not only of Appalachian history but of southern economic and environmental history as well."—John C. Inscoe, author of Race, War, and Remembrance in the Appalachian South

As a region previously categorized by scholars as backward or undeveloped, southwestern Virginia undergoes quite a journey in Hall's skillful and painstakingly researched narrative...his convincing argument that we need to reassess the mountain South's traditional role as a preindustrial or precapitalist region makes his book a valuable addition to the literature and a must-read for scholars of economic development and the U.S. South.

~Sean Patrick Adams, The Journal of Southern History

Provides an astonishingly detailed portrait of the extractice industries in the New River region of Virginia...All in all, the volume...provides an excellent microhistory of an understudied region of the Appalachian South.

~North Carolina Historical Review

Randal Hall provides a well-researched and well-written economic history of southwestern Virginia... Anyone with an interest in Southern history, Appalachian history, business history, or extractive industries should read this book.—Charles Reback

~Charles Reback, EH.Net

Reading a history book that does not stop or start with the Civil War era is refreshing.—Robert Gudmestad

~Robert Gudmestad

Hall tantalizes his readers with such a short treatment that one is left wishing for more.

~American Historical Review