Although Caudill has called his book A Biography of a Depressed Area, it is also the story of what other parts of America might have been, if we had not developed a land ethic and formulated a system atic conservation program. Ironically, not far away from the dark and bloody ground Of the Cumberland Plateau is the Tennessee Valley Authority, the nation's highest benchmark in land use and regional planning Of resources. But a few years ago the Congress drew a wall around tva, and its proximity only serves now to dramatize the contrast between the social health and well-being that accompany wise development of resources, and the poverty of land and Spirit that can occur in absence of such planning.