Central Kansas Library System

"An eye-opening memoir of working-class poverty in the American Midwest. During Sarah Smarsh's turbulent childhood in Kansas in the 1980s and 1990s, the forces of cyclical poverty and the country's changing economic policies solidified her family's place among the working poor. By telling the story of her life and the lives of the people she loves, Smarsh challenges us to look more closely at the class divide in our country and examine the myths about...

An instant New York Times and indie bestseller, Dopesick is the only book to fully chart the devastating opioid crisis in America, from a bestselling author and journalist who has lived through it In this masterful work, Beth Macy takes us into the epicenter of America's twenty-plus year struggle with opioid addiction. From distressed small communities in Central Appalachia to wealthy suburbs; from disparate cities to once-idyllic farm towns; it's...

From yesterday's gingham girls to today's Google-era Farmer Janes, The Midwest Farmer's Daughter explores the resurgent role played by female agriculturalists at a time when fully 30 percent of new farms in the US are woman-owned, but when, paradoxically, America's farm-reared daughters are conspicuously absent from popular film, television, and literature. In this first-of-its-kind treatment, Zachary Michael Jack follows the fascinating story of...

Although most Americans no longer live in small towns, images of small-town life, and particularly of the mutual support and neighborliness to be found in such places, remain powerful in our culture. In Habits of the Heartland Lyn C. Macgregor investigates how the residents of Viroqua, Wisconsin, population 4,355, create a small-town community together. Macgregor lived in Viroqua for nearly two years. During that time she gathered data in public places,...

"La juventud rural es un tema que cuenta con poca visibilidad en las agendas académicas y de política pública. Los trabajos e informes realizados se orientan, sobre todo, a fenómenos como la migración hacia las ciudades y la participación en el conflicto armado. Este libro hace un acercamiento distinto, en el que revisa cómo aparecen varias representaciones sobre lo que significa ser joven en zonas rurales. Resultado de un trabajo de campo...

In the early twentieth century, the Chinese state made strenuous efforts to broaden and deepen its authority over rural society. This book is an ambitious attempt to offer both a method and a framework for analyzing Chinese social history in the state-making era. The author constructs a prismatic view of village-level society that shows how marketing, kinship, water control, temple patronage, and other structures of human interaction overlapped to...

Rural life in North America has changed dramatically since the days of the family farm, when people worked the same land for generations, let their cows graze in pastures and their chickens scratch in dirt, and sold their produce locally. The few remaining small farmers now struggle to survive, strangled by debt and a rash of complex regulations designed to drive them out of business. In their place are corporate-backed factory farms with little understanding...

What is fueling rural America's outrage toward the federal government? Why did rural Americans vote overwhelmingly for Donald Trump? And, beyond economic and demographic decline, is there a more nuanced explanation for the growing rural-urban divide? Drawing on more than a decade of research and hundreds of interviews, Robert Wuthnow brings us into America's small towns, farms, and rural communities to paint a rich portrait of the moral order--the...

Surprises, entertains and enchants... the modern successor to Gilbert White and Henry David Thoreau.' Indra Sinha, author of Animal's People, short-listed for the 2007 Man Booker prize 'A simple walk in the woods becomes a year-long adventure packed with mysteries, insights and wonder, often all on the same page. Ken's 'Field' will make you happy and, possibly, consider investing in rugged new footwear.' Emma Thompson, Oscar-winning actress and screenwriter...

Providing a firsthand account of the land enclosure movement of the 19th century from a major English poet, this extensively researched study gives modern readers an appreciation of the divisive effects of such policies. Structured chronologically, this exploration of John Clare's life highlights the socioeconomic and environmental aspects of his observations and includes his reports on an insidious revolution taking place in England, where a Parliament...