Long neglected by historians, the American Midwest has come to be known as the " Lost Region." But in the last decade a cadre of dedicated scholars has worked to remedy this oversight, launching new associations, conferences, and journals that have given rise to the New Midwestern History. Between Loving and Leaving reveals the depth and breadth of this revived field, showcasing its variety and reach, cultivating new approaches, and opening the way to the extraordinary range of topics embraced by a true history of the Midwest. The authors, among the most distinguished in the field, take up topics of new, renewed, and longstanding interest. They consider the Midwestern landscape, family farming, and literature and art produced by Midwesterners. Their essays explore matters of ethnicity, race, and gender, highlighting the experiences of, among others, African American Midwesterners, Latinos, Native Americans, and women. And inevitably, in a region that has produced so many activists and movements, they look at peculiarly Midwestern politics. Working the fertile territory between a deep attachment to the Midwest, with its civic and social institutions and achievements, and a flight from the familiar, the authors capture the vast and varied character of the Midwest as it is experienced, understood, and represented in art and literature - and, finally, in history.
Jon K. Lauck is the past president of the Midwestern History Association, teaches history and political science at the University of South Dakota, and is Editor-in-Chief of Middle West Review. He has authored or edited several books, including The Lost Region: Toward a Revival of Midwestern History; Daschle vs. Thune; Finding a New Midwestern History; and three volumes of The Plains Political Tradition.
"The study of the Midwest as a region has seen a resurgence in this century. With its wide variety of topics, Between Loving and Leaving is a wonderful starting point for future scholarship, ensuring new and exciting directions for years to come." - Jason Lantzer, author of Dwight Eisenhower and the Holocaust: A History "Between Loving and Leaving provides critically important scholarship by major scholars, situating their ideas in larger narratives of U.S. history and including histories long neglected by midwestern studies. For many readers interested in the Midwest, this book will serve as a starting point, point of intervention, or review of the state of the field." - Terrion Williamson, editor of Black in the Middle: An Anthology of the Black Midwest
