Download The Middle West: Its Meaning in American Culture fb2, epub

by James R. Shortridge

ISBN: 0700604758
Author: James R. Shortridge
Language: English
Publisher: University Press of Kansas (March 15, 1989)
Pages: 216
Category: Americas
Subcategory: History
Rating: 4.9
Votes: 596
Size Fb2: 1813 kb
Size ePub: 1649 kb
Size Djvu: 1330 kb
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James R. Shortridge Americas English

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Moreover, as James Shortridge demonstrates in this excellent book, it is a concept with a fascinating history and a controversial . The Middle West is not just a place, it's an idea-a necessary fiction for the American psyche

Moreover, as James Shortridge demonstrates in this excellent book, it is a concept with a fascinating history and a controversial, provocative present existence. Readers interested in virtually any aspect of the Midwest-popular culture, intellectual, cultural, and social history, American Studies and literature, sociology, economics-are likely to find something here to pique approval or argument. This book is extremely stimulating. The Middle West is not just a place, it's an idea-a necessary fiction for the American psyche. Shortridge offers a unique and fascinating look at its meaning, essence, and character.

The Middle West book. In this thoughtful book, cultural geographer James R. Shortridge offers a historical probe into the "idea" of the Middle West. It is the heartland, the home of the can . By exploring what this term originally meant and how it has changed over the past 150 years, he presents a fascinating look at the question of regional identity and its place in the collective consciousness.

Shortridge, James . 1944-. Books for People with Print Disabilities. Internet Archive Books. Uploaded by Tracey Gutierres on August 5, 2013. SIMILAR ITEMS (based on metadata).

In this thoughtful book, cultural geographer James R. Shortridge offers a historical probe into the idea of the Middle West. Yet the definition of the Middle West, that most amorphous of regions, is elusive and changing

In this thoughtful book, cultural geographer James R. Yet the definition of the Middle West, that most amorphous of regions, is elusive and changing. In historical, cultural, political, literary, and artistic terms the region is variously drawn.

The Old Country School: The Story of Rural Education in the Middle West (U of Chicago Press, 1982). Mattingly, Paul H. and Edward W. Stevens Jr. Schools and the Means of Education Shall Forever Be Encouraged: A History of Education in the Old Northwest, 1787-1880 (1987), 132pp.

Its Meaning in American Culture. Every textbook comes with a 21-day "Any Reason" guarantee. Published by University Press of Kansas.

The Middle West: Its Meaning in American Culture. It is the "heartland," the home of the average middle American.

Academic journal article Material Culture. Six themes form the book's core, each with a chapter of its own. Remaking the Heartland: Middle America since the 1950s. Academic journal article Material Culture. The book is as much history as social science, and the writing flows seamlessly from personal observation to archival material, and from case studies to broad generalization. The total package is impressive: insights from some two hundred in-depth interviews supplemented by information from local newspapers, company reports, and an original content analysis of changing values via the Farm Journal magazine. by James R. Shortridge. Published 1989 by University Press of Kansas in Lawrence, Kan Middle West. Published 1989 by University Press of Kansas in Lawrence, Kan. Social conditions, Civilization, Human geography, Regionalism.

It is the "heartland," the home of the average—middle—American. Yet the definition of the Middle West, that most amorphous of regions, is elusive and changing. In historical, cultural, political, literary, and artistic terms the region is variously drawn. It is alternately praised as a pastoral oasis and damned as a cultural backwater, fostering wholesome pragmatism and crass materialism, home to people at once resilient and embittered, hardworking and complacent. From Willa Cather to Sherwood Anderson, from The Wizard of Oz to The Music Man, images of the Middle West are powerful and contradictory.In this thoughtful book, cultural geographer James R. Shortridge offers a historical probe into the "idea" of the Middle West. By exploring what this term originally meant and how it has changed over the past 150 years, he presents a fascinating look at the question of regional identity and its place in the collective consciousness. A work of unconventional geography based on extensive research in popular literature, this volume examines meaning, essence, character—the important intangibles of place not captured by statistical studies—and explores the intimate connections between the notion of pastoralism and the definition of the Middle West.

Comments:

GWEZJ

A very good, still-useful, goegrapher's look at changging conceptions and realities about the Midwest.

Humin

James Shortridge employs unique research techniques and an innovative way of thinking to provide an original perspective on what and where the American Middle West is. He studies popular literature to search for the prevalence of the term "Middle West," and he utilizes survey techniques to measure how people define where it is. He finds that its image has remained fairly constant--American pastoralism--but its location has shifted from the edge of the Great Plains toward the east, and then back toward the west once again. Similarly, its image has waxed and waned in American culture, from being the paragon of the real American character and soul to being a rural backwater. This book provides tremendous insights into the meaning of the one region in America whose self identity remains uncertain.