Remaking the Heartland, by Robert Wuthnow

In most ways Robert Wuthnow gets it right. This social history of the Middle West demonstrates how the values that emerged in the six decades before 1950 were reshaped in the following six decades. He reports that the Middle West was remade out of many of the same values that contributed to the region's resilience and ingenuity.

A values analysis of the culture of this nine-state region (Arkansas, Iowa, Kan­sas, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma and South Dako­ta) over the past 60 years reveals that the conflict pervading the period has been between aggressive expansion and growth on the one hand and a desire for a traditional, relational and slower pace of life on the other. Similarly, the business of accommodating newcomers and pursuing new businesses and all those features that growth requires stands poised against the lifestyle of having good friends, quiet neighborhoods, conservative values and a connection to nature.

What is striking in Wuthnow's analysis is how many Middle West values have enabled small towns to accommodate growth. To be sure, those values have done some shape shifting, but one can still recognize the skeletal outlines of them in this analysis. For example, the value that immigrants to the region put on education and postsecondary schools, including the colleges and universities they established, are still reflected in educational rankings; this feature has made for an educated and resilient population.