Books on the Midwest

This extensive list of nonfiction writing is divided into regional, urban, and rural categories to provide insight into the diverse range of Midwestern issues and experiences.


Regional:
 
The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia
Edited by Richard Sisson, Christian Zacher, and Andrew Cayton; published by Indiana University Press (2006)

The American Midwest: Managing Change in Rural Transition 
Edited by Norman Walzer; published by M.E. Sharpe, Inc. (2003)

Caught in the Middle: America's Heartland in the Age of Globalism
By Richard C. Longworth; published by Bloomsbury (2008)

The Chicago Great Western Railway 
By David J. Fiore Sr.; published by Arcadia Publishing (2006)

Dictionary of Midwestern Literature
Edited By Philip A. Greasley; published by Indiana University Press (2001)

Farm and Factory: Workers in the Midwest 1880–1990
By Daniel Nelson; published by Indiana University Press (1995)

The Great Lakes Water Wars
By Peter Annin; published by Island Press (2006)

Heartland: Comparative Histories of the Midwestern States
Edited by James H. Madison; published by Indiana University Press (1988)

The Identity of the American Midwest: Essays on Regional History
Edited by Andrew R. L. Cayton and Susan E. Gray; published by Indiana University Press (2001)

Main-Traveled Roads
By Hamlin Garland; originally published by Arena Publishing Company (1891)

The Middle West: Its Meaning in American Culture
By James R. Shortridge; published by The University Press of Kansas (1989)

The Midwest and the Nation: Rethinking the History of an American Region
By Andrew R. L. Cayton and Peter S. Onuf; published by Indiana University Press (1990)

Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West
By William Cronon; published by W. W. Norton (1992)

The Nine Nations of North America
By Joel Garreau; originally published by Houghton Mifflin (1981)

Pandora’s Locks: The Opening of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway
By Jeff Alexander; published by Michigan State University Press (2009)

A People's History of the Hmong
By Paul Hillmer, Minnesota Historical Society (2009)

A Watershed Year: Anatomy of the Iowa Floods of 2008
Edited by Cornelia F. Mutel; published by University of Iowa Press (2010)

Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do
By Studs Terkel; originally published by Ballantine (1985)

Urban:

And the Wolf Finally Came: The Decline of the American Steel Industry
By John P. Hoerr; published by University of Pittsburgh Press (1988)

Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago
By Mike Royko; published by Plume (1988)

Chicago and the Illinois Central Railroad
By Clifford J. Downey; published by Arcadia Publishing (2007)

Chicago, City on the Make
By Nelson Algren; published by (1951)

Cities of the Heartland: The Rise and Fall of the Industrial Midwest
By Jon C. Teaford; published by Indiana University Press (1993)

City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America
By Donald Miller; published by Simon and Schuster (1997)

Crash Course: The American Automobile Industry's Road from Glory to Disaster
By Paul Ingrassia; published by Random House (2010)

Division Street, America
By Studs Terkel; originally published by Pantheon Books (1967)

Global Chicago
Edited By Charles Madigan; published by University of Illinois Press (2004)

Grassroots at the Gateway: Class Politics and Black Freedom Struggle in St. Louis, 1936-75
By Clarence Lang; published by University of Michigan Press (2009)

The Merchant of Power: Sam Insull, Thomas Edison and The Creation of the Modern Metropolis
By John F. Wasik; published by Palgrave Macmillan (2008)

Middletown: A Study in Contemporary American Culture
Robert S. Lynd and Helen Merrell Lynd; published by Harcourt, Brace, and Company (1929)

The New Chicago: A Social and Cultural Analysis
Edited By John P. Koval, Larry Bennett, Michael I. J. Bennett, Fassil Demissie, Roberta Garner and Kiljoong Kim; published by Temple University Press (2006)

Never a City So Real: A Walk in Chicago
By Alex Kotlowitz; published by Crown (2004)

The Other Side of the River: A Story of Two Towns, a Death and America’s Dilemma
By Alex Kotlowitz; originally published by Nan A. Talese (1998)

Rusted Dreams: Hard Times in a Steel Community
By David Bensman and Roberta Lynch; published by University of California Press (1988)

There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America
By Alex Kotlowitz; published by Anchor (1992)

Why the Garden Club Couldn’t Save Youngstown
By Sean Safford; published by Harvard University Press (2009)

The World's Columbian Exposition: The Chicago World's Fair of 1893
By Norman Bolotin and Christine Laing; originally published by Preservation Press (1992)

Rural:

Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years
Carl Sandburg; published by Mariner Books (1926)

Broken Heartland: The Rise of America’s Rural Ghetto
By Osha Gray Davidson; published by University of Iowa Press (1996)

Denison, Iowa
By Dale Maharidge and Michael Williamson; originally published by Free Press (2005)

The Hidden America: Social Problems in Rural America for the Twenty-first Century
By Robert M. Moore; published by Susquehanna University Press (2001)

Hollowing Out the Middle: The Rural Brain Drain and What It Means for America
By Patrick J. Carr and Maria J. Kefalas; published by Beacon Press (2009)

Making the Corn Belt: A Geographical History of Middle-Western Agriculture
By John C. Hudson; published by Indiana University Press (1994)

Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town
By Nick Reding; published by Bloomsbury USA (2009)

The Oxford Project
By Stephen G. Bloom and Peter Feldstein; published by Welcome Books (2008)

Our People, Our Journey: The Little River Ottawa Band of Indians
By James M. McClurken; published by Michigan State University Press (2009)

Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America
By Stephen G. Bloom; published by Harcourt Trade Publishers (2000)

Postville: USA: Surviving Diversity in Small-Town America
Mary Grey, Michele Devlin and Aaron Goldsmith; published by Ingram Publisher Services (2009)

Prairie Reunion
By Barbara Scot; originally published by Unknown Binding (1995)

A Son of the Middle Border
By Hamlin Garland; published by Borealis Books (1917)

What’s the Matter with Kansas?
By Thomas Frank; published by Holt Paperbacks (1995)