The year was 1872 and fighting from the Civil War had nearly torn the United States apart. The young country had survived, but a new one was taking shape directly within its very borders—along the rift of earth and rock they called the Appalachian mountains.

A hardy group of Nordic Americans, disenfranchised with the direction of the American nation, began to carve out a slice of the beautiful land they had come to love. With the United States still reeling from years of conflict, they were able to form their own republic, connected together by the tribal bonds of kinship and the spiritual ties of their Christian faith.

Their fledgling republic would flourish at first. Towns were built. Children were born. An entirely new culture was born from their prosperity, a mix of their Nordic traditions infused with their more recent Christian conversion. But trouble would come. At first, a relentless onslaught of strangers intent upon profiting from their bounty. Later, pressure would mount as the government sought to subsume their land and people back into the states from which they had splintered.

Through an incredible collection of over 400 never-before-seen photographs, Appalachia tells the fascinating story of this forsaken place and its forgotten people, a group of men and women and children who would stop at nothing to defend their faith, the family, and the land they called home.