Williams Baptist University will host a book signing for Blake Perkins, chair of the Williams Department of History, on Thursday, Oct. 5. The event will be held at 7:00 p.m. in the Eagle Grill, and Perkins will read from his new book, “Hillbilly Hellraisers: Federal Power and Populist Defiance in the Ozarks.”
“This book has been on my mind since my senior year of college and took shape as I began working toward my doctoral dissertation project at West Virginia University,” said Perkins.
In his book, Perkins explores the long roots of rural resistance to federal power in the Arkansas Ozarks and examines how it changed over time. He focuses on experiences and attitudes of rural people as they interacted with government from the late nineteenth century through the twentieth century.
“Having grown up near many small family farmers, as well as on my own family’s farm near the Strawberry River, all the changes that rural people and small farmers have gone through over time has always been of interest to me,” said Perkins.
Perkins is a Lawrence County native and 2004 graduate of Lynn High School (now Hillcrest) and currently lives in Lynn with his wife, Jodie, and their two sons, Maddox and Rylan.
The book, published by the University of Illinois Press, is a volume in the series The Working Class in American History, a leading series in this field of scholarship. The project was supported, in part, with funding from the Arkansas Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
“Hillbilly Hellraisers” was officially released Oct. 2 and is available from major booksellers.
Eagle Grill, where the book signing will be held, is in WBU’s Mabee Student Center.
Williams is a Christian, liberal arts college in Walnut Ridge, Ark. It will become Williams Baptist University in July of 2018.