Sixteen essays document the extent and variety of community resistance and struggle in Appalachia since 1960, and the origins and factors contributing to success or failure of particular efforts. They also relate the study of Appalachian dissent to issues informing scholarly discussions of dissent nationally. Of particular educational relevance are chapters describing: the role of the Highlander Research and Education Center in eastern Tennessee in encouraging activist networks and the creation of a social movement in Appalachia; organizations providing job training and advocacy for women seeking to enter traditional male occupations; cultural education and the rebirth of regional culture as a force in regional identity and community organizing; and the emergence of Appalachian studies, and related political implications of postmodernist thought. Chapters are: "Stopping the Bulldozers: What Difference Did It Make?" (M. B. Bingman); "Like a Flower Slowly Blooming: Highlander and the Nurturing of an Appalachian Movement" (J. M. Glen); "Racism and Organizing in Appalachia" (D. Manning-Miller); "From Fussin' to Organizing: Individual and Collective Resistance at Yellow Creek" (S. Cable); "Save Our Cumberland Mountains: Growth and Change within a Grassroots Organization" (B. Allen); "Practical Lessons in Community Organizing in Appalachia: What We've Learned at Kentuckians for the Commonwealth" (J. Szakos); "The Community Farm Alliance in Kentucky: The Growth, Mistakes, and Lessons of the Farm Movement of the 1980s" (H. Hamilton & E. Ryan); "Appalachian Women Fight Back: Organizational Approaches to Nontraditional Job Advocacy" (C. Weiss); "The Memory of Miners and the Conscience of Capital: Coal Miners' Strikes as Free Spaces" (R. A. Couto); "Singing across Dark Spaces: The Union/Community Takeover of Pittston's Moss 3 Plant" (J. Sessions & F. Ansley); The People's Respirator: Coalition Building and the Black Lung Association" (B. M. Judkins); "Sowing on the Mountain: Nurturing Cultural Roots and Creativity for Community Change" (G. Carawan & C. Carawan); "Engendering the Struggle: Women's Labor and Traditions of Resistance in Rural Southern Appalachia" (M. K. Anglin); "Appalachian Studies, Resistance, and Postmodernism" (A. Banks, D. Billings, & K. Tice); "Politics, Expressive Form, and Historical Knowledge in a Blue Ridge Resistance Movement" (S. W. Foster); and "Conclusion: New Populist Theory and the Study of Dissent in Appalachia" (S. L. Fisher). The document includes bibliographies containing 286 items, a list of 26 pertinent organizations, and author profiles. (SV)