In a series of often highly personal essays, this book considers the question of regional identity as a useful way of thinking about the history of the American Midwest. The contributors begin with the assumption that Midwesterners have never been as consciously regional as their fellow Americans, east, south, and west. They note the particular absence of the Midwest from the recent revival of interest in American regionalism among both scholars and journalists. Drawing on personal experiences as well as a wide variety of scholarship, the authors consider what it means to be from the Midwest and why Midwesterners have traditionally been less assertive about their regional identity than other Americans.

Frontier Indiana

Andrew R. L. Cayton

"The research and scholarship that went into the work are excellent; so good, in fact, that the book should be on the required text list for all Transappalachian frontier courses." History

Cayton s lively new history of the frontier period in Indiana puts the focus on people, on how they lived, how they viewed their world, and what motivated them. Here are the stories of Sieur de Vincennes, John Francis Hamtramck, Little Turtle, Anna Tuthill Symmes Harrison, Tenskwatawa, Calvin Fletcher along with many more familiar (and not so familiar) early Hoosiers.

Sales territory is worldwide
A History of the Trans-Appalachian Frontier
1996; 360 pages, 20 b&w photos, 2 maps, index, 6 x 9
cloth 0-253-33048-3 $39.95 L / 28.50
paper 0-253-21217-0 $18.95 t / 13.50"

"Cayton and Onuf have tried to recapture a central place for region in our thinking while, at the same time, incorporating into their analysis the latest scholarship on gender, political behavior, etc. Theirs is a fine blending of the old and the new: old scholarship and new directions." Malcolm J. Rohrbough

"This is an ambitious work that... truly beongs on the must do reading list of all midwestern and American historians." American Historical Review

..". an impressive interpretive work that will command the attention of regional historians and national scholars alike." Illinois Historical Journal

..". an excellent extended historiographic essay that seeks not only to locate the significance of the region created by the early land ordinance but also to raise issues for the historical examination of other regions of the country." South Dakota History

"What makes this book especially interesting and valuable is that it is informed by the post-modern scholar s view that knowledge can never be objective and eternally true; rather, it is subjective and socially constructed, shaped by the political, social, intellectual, and economic environments in which it is formed." Western Illinois Regional Studies

"The book s review of scholarship about the region is exhaustive, as well as brisk and lucid." American Studies International

..". a rigorous intellecutal analysis of the region s most important historiography." Gateway Heritage

..". an excellent book... " The Annals of Iowa

"What is impressive about this densely written work is the number of secondary works incorporated into the text and the importance of the authors' thesis of the considerable influence of happenings in the Midwest of the nineteenth century." North Dakota History

"There is... much to be praised in this book, and it will be frequently used and discussed by scholars of the early Midwest." Journal of American History"

This new book consists of mini-biographies of 15 Americans who lived during the Antebellum period in American history. Part of The Human Tradition in America series, the anthology paints vivid portraits of the lives of lesser-known Americans. Raising new questions from fresh perspectives, this volume contributes to a broader understanding of the dynamic forces that shaped the political, economic, social, and institutional changes that characterized the antebellum period. Moving beyond the older, outdated historical narratives of political institutions and the great men who shaped them, these biographies offer revealing insights on gender roles and relations, working-class experiences, race, and local economic change and its effect on society and politics. The voices of these ordinary individuals-African Americans, women, ethnic groups, and workers-have until recently often been silent in history texts. At the same time, these biographies also reveal the major themes that were part of the history of the early republic and antebellum era, including the politics of the Jacksonian era, the democratization of politics and society, party formation, market revolution, territorial expansion, the removal of Indians from their territory, religious freedom, and slavery. Accessible and fascinating, these biographies present a vivid picture of the richly varied character of American life in the first half of the nineteenth century. This book is ideal for courses on the Early National period, U.S. history survey, and American social and cultural history.