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Travel north from the upper Midwest's metropolises, and before long
you're "Up North"-a region that's hard to define but unmistakable
to any resident or tourist. Crops give way to forests, mines (or
their remains) mark the landscape, and lakes multiply, becoming
ever clearer until you reach the vastness of the Great Lakes. How
to characterize this region, as distinct from the agrarian Midwest,
is the question North Country seeks to answer, as a congenial group
of scholars, journalists, and public intellectuals explores the
distinctive landscape, culture, and history that define the
northern margins of the American Midwest. From the glacial past to
the present day, these essays range across the histories of the
Dakota and Ojibwe people, colonial imperial rivalries and
immigration, and conflicts between the economic imperatives of
resource extraction and the stewardship of nature. The book also
considers literary treatments of the area-and arguably makes its
own contributions to that literature, as some of the authors search
for the North Country through personal essays, while others
highlight individuals who are identified with the area, like Sigurd
Olson, John Barlow Martin, and Russell Kirk. From the fur trade to
tourism, fisheries to supper clubs, Finnish settlers to Native
treaty rights, the nature of the North Country emerges here in all
its variety and particularity: as clearly distinct from the greater
Midwest as it is part of the American heartland.
At the center of American history is a hole-a gap where some
scholars' indifference or disdain has too long stood in for the
true story of the American Midwest. A first-ever chronicle of the
Midwest's formative century, The Good Country restores this
American heartland to its central place in the nation's history.
Jon K. Lauck, the premier historian of the region, puts midwestern
"squares" center stage-an unorthodox approach that leads to
surprising conclusions. The American Midwest, in Lauck's cogent
account, was the most democratically advanced place in the world
during the nineteenth century. The Good Country describes a rich
civic culture that prized education, literature, libraries, and the
arts; developed a stable social order grounded in Victorian norms,
republican virtue, and Christian teachings; and generally put
democratic ideals into practice to a greater extent than any nation
to date. The outbreak of the Civil War and the fight against the
slaveholding South only deepened the Midwest's dedication to
advancing a democratic culture and solidified its regional
identity. The "good country" was, of course, not the "perfect
country," and Lauck devotes a chapter to the question of race in
the Midwest, finding early examples of overt racism but also
discovering a steady march toward racial progress. He also finds
many instances of modest reforms enacted through the democratic
process and designed to address particular social problems, as well
as significant advances for women, who were active in civic affairs
and took advantage of the Midwest's openness to women in higher
education. Lauck reaches his conclusions through a measured
analysis that weighs historical achievements and injustices,
rejects the acrimonious tones of the culture wars, and seeks a new
historical discourse grounded in fair readings of the American
past. In a trying time of contested politics and culture, his book
locates a middle ground, fittingly, in the center of the country.
First impressions of the political landscape in South Dakota tend
towards an assumption of hard-line conservatism, and yet such a
conclusion barely scratches the surface of what constitutes
political tradition in the Mount Rushmore State. Editors Jon K.
Lauck, John E. Miller, and Donald C. Simmons, Jr., have drawn
together twelve essays on disparate topics in order to consider the
state's underlying political culture. Each essay addresses an
aspect of history, politics, or art, subtly exposing the
contradictory nature of South Dakotans and elucidating the many
elements that comprise the larger political tradition. Scholars
from around the country consider topics such as war and peace,
literature, environmentalism, the American Indian Movement,
left-wing and liberal politics, immigration, and defeat. With each
essay, the discussion builds upon itself, allowing the reader to
develop a fuller sense of where South Dakota fits into the growing
study of political culture in modern society.
Travel north from the upper Midwest's metropolises, and before long
you're "Up North"-a region that's hard to define but unmistakable
to any resident or tourist. Crops give way to forests, mines (or
their remains) mark the landscape, and lakes multiply, becoming
ever clearer until you reach the vastness of the Great Lakes. How
to characterize this region, as distinct from the agrarian Midwest,
is the question North Country seeks to answer, as a congenial group
of scholars, journalists, and public intellectuals explores the
distinctive landscape, culture, and history that define the
northern margins of the American Midwest. From the glacial past to
the present day, these essays range across the histories of the
Dakota and Ojibwe people, colonial imperial rivalries and
immigration, and conflicts between the economic imperatives of
resource extraction and the stewardship of nature. The book also
considers literary treatments of the area-and arguably makes its
own contributions to that literature, as some of the authors search
for the North Country through personal essays, while others
highlight individuals who are identified with the area, like Sigurd
Olson, John Barlow Martin, and Russell Kirk. From the fur trade to
tourism, fisheries to supper clubs, Finnish settlers to Native
treaty rights, the nature of the North Country emerges here in all
its variety and particularity: as clearly distinct from the greater
Midwest as it is part of the American heartland.
At the center of American history is a hole-a gap where some
scholars' indifference or disdain has too long stood in for the
true story of the American Midwest. A first-ever chronicle of the
Midwest's formative century, The Good Country restores this
American heartland to its central place in the nation's history.
Jon K. Lauck, the premier historian of the region, puts midwestern
"squares" center stage-an unorthodox approach that leads to
surprising conclusions. The American Midwest, in Lauck's cogent
account, was the most democratically advanced place in the world
during the nineteenth century. The Good Country describes a rich
civic culture that prized education, literature, libraries, and the
arts; developed a stable social order grounded in Victorian norms,
republican virtue, and Christian teachings; and generally put
democratic ideals into practice to a greater extent than any nation
to date. The outbreak of the Civil War and the fight against the
slaveholding South only deepened the Midwest's dedication to
advancing a democratic culture and solidified its regional
identity. The "good country" was, of course, not the "perfect
country," and Lauck devotes a chapter to the question of race in
the Midwest, finding early examples of overt racism but also
discovering a steady march toward racial progress. He also finds
many instances of modest reforms enacted through the democratic
process and designed to address particular social problems, as well
as significant advances for women, who were active in civic affairs
and took advantage of the Midwest's openness to women in higher
education. Lauck reaches his conclusions through a measured
analysis that weighs historical achievements and injustices,
rejects the acrimonious tones of the culture wars, and seeks a new
historical discourse grounded in fair readings of the American
past. In a trying time of contested politics and culture, his book
locates a middle ground, fittingly, in the center of the country.
American democratic ideals, civic republicanism, public morality,
and Christianity were the dominant forces at work during South
Dakota's formative decade. What? In our cynical age, such a claim
seems either remarkably naÏve or hopelessly outdated. Territorial
politics in the late-nineteenth-century West is typically viewed as
a closed-door game of unprincipled opportunism or is caricatured,
as in the classic film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, as a
drunken exercise in bombast and rascality. Now Jon K. Lauck
examines anew the values we like to think were at work during the
founding of our western states. Taking Dakota Territory as a
laboratory for examining a formative stage of western politics,
Lauck finds that settlers from New England and the Midwest brought
democratic practices and republican values to the northern plains
and invoked them as guiding principles in the drive for South
Dakota statehood. Prairie Republic corrects an overemphasis on
class conflict and economic determinism, factors posited decades
ago by such historians as Howard R. Lamar. Instead, Lauck finds
South Dakota's political founders to be agents of Protestant
Christianity and of civic republicanism - an age-old ideology that
entrusted the polity to independent, landowning citizens who placed
the common interest above private interest. Focusing on the
political culture widely shared among settlers attracted to the
Great Dakota Boom of the 1880s, Lauck shows how they embraced civic
virtue, broad political participation, and agrarian ideals. Family
was central in their lives, as were common-school education, work,
and Christian community. In rescuing the story of Dakota's settlers
from historical obscurity, Prairie Republic dissents from the
recent darker portrayal of western history and expands our view and
understanding of the American democratic tradition.
The story behind the unseating of a Senate majority leader the race
between Tom Daschle and John Thune in South Dakota was widely
acknowledged as ""the other big race of 2004."" Second in
prominence only to the presidential race, the Daschle-Thune contest
pitted the rival political ideologies that have animated American
politics since the 1960s. In a sign of the ongoing strength of
political conservatism, Daschle became the first Senate leader in
fifty years to lose a re-election bid. Historian Jon K. Lauck, a
South Dakotan who was an insider during that heated campaign, now
offers a multilayered examination of this hard-fought and
symbolically charged race. Blending historical narrative, political
analysis, and personal reflection, he offers a close-up view of the
issues that divide the nation - a case study of the continuing
clash between liberalism and conservatism that has played out for
more than a generation in U.S. politics. Daschle vs. Thune moves
beyond the nitty-gritty of public policy to deftly show how the
recent past continues to shape the ongoing political battles that
animate pundits and bloggers. It is a compelling story told by a
writer who knows both his home ground and how it fits into the
wider U.S. context.
In comparison to such regions as the South, the far West, and New
England, the Midwest and its culture have been neglected both by
scholars and by the popular press. Historians as well as literary
and art critics tend not to examine the Midwest in depth in their
academic work. And in the popular imagination, the Midwest has
never ascended to the level of the proud, literary South; the
cultured, democratic Northeast; or the hip, innovative West Coast.
Finding a New Midwestern History revives and identifies anew the
Midwest as a field of study by promoting a diversity of viewpoints
and lending legitimacy to a more in-depth, rigorous scholarly
assessment of a large region of the United States that has largely
been overlooked by scholars. The essays discuss facets of
midwestern life worth examining more deeply, including history,
religion, geography, art, race, culture, and politics, and are
written by well-known scholars in the field such as Michael Allen,
Jon Butler, and Nicole Etcheson.
In comparison to such regions as the South, the far West, and New
England, the Midwest and its culture have been neglected both by
scholars and by the popular press. Historians as well as literary
and art critics tend not to examine the Midwest in depth in their
academic work. And in the popular imagination, the Midwest has
never ascended to the level of the proud, literary South; the
cultured, democratic Northeast; or the hip, innovative West Coast.
Finding a New Midwestern History revives and identifies anew the
Midwest as a field of study by promoting a diversity of viewpoints
and lending legitimacy to a more in-depth, rigorous scholarly
assessment of a large region of the United States that has largely
been overlooked by scholars. The essays discuss facets of
midwestern life worth examining more deeply, including history,
religion, geography, art, race, culture, and politics, and are
written by well-known scholars in the field such as Michael Allen,
Jon Butler, and Nicole Etcheson.
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