At the centre 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.
Examines the values we like to think were at work during the founding of America's western states. Taking Dakota Territory as a laboratory for examining a formative stage of western politics, Jon Lauck finds that settlers from New England and the Midwest invoked democratic practices as guiding principles in the drive for South Dakota statehood.