Kathleen Blee and Dwight Billings examine the social dynamics of persistently poor rural communities.

List of illustrations; List of tables; Preface and acknowledgments; Part I. Public Policy and Historical Sociology: 1. Introduction; Part II. Antebellum Capitalist Markets: 2. Fronier Kentucky in the capitalist world system; 3. Industry, commerce, and slaveholding; Part III. Antebellum State Coercion: 4. State making and the origins of elite conflict; Part IV. Cultural Strategies: 5. The patriarchal moral economy of agriculture; 6. Racial dynamics and the creation of poverty; Part V. Postbellum Capitalist Markets and the Local State: 7. From marginality to integration; 8. Feud violence; 9. Epilogue; Appendix; Notes; Index.