The Lost Region: Toward a Revival of Midwestern History

In comparison to the South, the far West, and New England, the history of the Midwest has been sadly neglected. In addition to outlining the centrality of the Midwest to crucial moments in American history, Jon K. Lauck resurrects the long-forgotten stories of the institutions founded by an earlier generation of midwestern historians. The Lost Region demonstrates the importance of the Midwest, the depth of historical work once written about the region, and the continuing insights that can be gleaned from this body of knowledge, all with the intent of finding the forgotten center of the nation and developing a robust historiography of the Midwest.

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Attorney, historian, and senior advisor and counsel to South Dakota Senator John Thune, Jon K. Lauck is the author of three books on Midwestern political and economic history and the coauthor and coeditor of a collection of essays on South Dakota’s political culture.