No doubt the two works of 1978 most important for an emerging Appalachian Studies field were "Colonialism in Modern America: The Appalachian Case" edited by Helen Lewis and her associates and Henry Shapiro's "Appalachia on Our Mind: The Southern Mountains and Mountaineers in the American Consciousness, 1870-1920." The American region on which these authors focused has been caught up in a major power shift indicated by the flood of studies and debates on "globalization," "global capitalism," and the "transnational corporate state." In this article, the author focuses on Henry Shapiro's important book "Appalachia on Our Mind" and his reaction to it in Appalachian studies, an episode that should illuminate the insider/outsider frame and related problems. Among other things, the author contends that basic questions regarding Appalachia would have to be pursued through the brier patch of disparate notions about the larger society, i.e. American ideology. The author also sums up some of the arguments he had formulated in the form of questions that have become important to him in the twenty-five years or more since he first read "Appalachia on Our Mind."