The Exceptionalism of the Old Square World -- "A Free and Unrestricted Mode of Life": Planting Democracy in the Midwest -- "Moulded for Good": The Growth of a Common Democratic Culture in the Midwest -- "The Attitude of a Section Itself": The Formation of Midwestern Regional Identity -- "Also a Seamy Side to Certain Phases of the History of the Valley": Racial Failures and Advances in the Good Country -- "Nothing Else Quite like It in the World": The Midwest and the Age of Mild Reform -- Finding Virtue in the Good Country

"A history of the US Midwest in the nineteenth century, describing and analyzing a rich civic culture that prized education, literature, libraries, and the arts; developed a stable social order grounded in Victorian norms, republican virtue, and Christian teachings; was marred by overt racism but made significant progress toward racial equality; and generally put democratic ideals into practice further than any nation to date"--