The Heartland: An American History

A history of a quintessentially American place—the rural and small town heartland—that uncovers deep yet hidden currents of connection with the world.

When Kristin L. Hoganson arrived in Champaign, Illinois, after teaching at Harvard, studying at Yale, and living in the D.C. metro area with various stints overseas, she expected to find her new home, well, isolated. Even provincial. After all, she had landed in the American heartland, a place where the nation's identity exists in its pristine...