Lies of the Land: Seeing Rural America for What It Is-and Isn't

A new history that boldly challenges the idea of a rural American crisis.

It seems everyone has an opinion about rural America.

Is it gripped in a tragic decline? Or is it on the cusp of a glorious revival? Is it the key to understanding America today? Steven Conn argues that we're missing the real question: Is rural America even a thing?

No, says Conn, who believes we see only what we want to see in the lands beyond the suburbs-fantasies about moral (or backward) communities, simpler (or repressive) living, and what it means to be authentically (or wrongheadedly) American.

If we want to build a better future, Conn argues, we must accept that these visions don't exist and never did.In The Lies of the Land, Conn shows that rural America-so often characterized as in crisis or in danger of being left behind-has actually been at the center of modern American history, shaped by the same forces as everywhere else in the country: militarization, industrialization, corporatization, and suburbanization.

Examining each of these forces in turn, Conn invites us to dispense with the lies and half-truths we've believed about rural America and to pursue better solutions to the very real challenges shared all across our nation.