This week at In The Past Lane, the history podcast, we look at the history of one of the more troubled regions in the nation, Appalachia. In particular, we’ll examine the backstory to how Appalachia became one of the poorest places in the US, and why it has stayed poor. I’ll speak with historian Steven Stoll about his new book, Ramp Hollow: The Ordeal of Appalachia. His book offers an important corrective to some of the underlying assumptions found in the bestselling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, by J.D. Va