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The Tennessee-Virginia Tri-Cities: Urbanization in Appalachia, 1900-1950. By Tom Lee. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2005. Pp. xvi, 342. $42.00, ISBN 1-57233-334-0.)
It is exceedingly rare for anyone to mention urbanization and Appalachia in the same breath. Tom Lee's history of the Tri-Cities metropolitan area breaks new ground by demonstrating that "the power of Appalachia' s elite over the people of the region is key to understanding Appalachia' s history and its present [and] the story of the Tri-Cities is an Appalachian story" (p. xiv). Lee examines the genesis of the individual urban centers of the so-called Tri-Cities (Kingsport, Tennessee; Johnson City, Tennessee; and Bristol, Tennessee- Virginia; and nearby towns) but insists on understanding the TriCities not "as discreet urban units" but "as components of a geographic area" that encompasses fourteen...