Kristin Hoganson is a professor of history whose scholarship centers on the United States in world context, the cultures of U.S. imperialism, and transnational history. Her work delves into the complex interplay between domestic and foreign policy, exploring how concepts of American identity and manhood are shaped on a global stage. Through meticulous analysis, Hoganson uncovers how ideals and ambitions intertwine with historical events, offering profound insights into the psyche of American expansionism. Her approach provides readers with a fresh understanding of how global interactions have been shaped and, in turn, how they have shaped America itself.
The narrative explores the often-overlooked aspect of American identity during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, highlighting how the United States not only sought to expand its influence but also embraced a culture of consumption and cosmopolitanism. Kristin Hoganson argues that between the Civil War and World War I, Americans increasingly indulged in imported goods, reflecting a desire to engage with the world while simultaneously shaping their national identity. This duality challenges the traditional view of America as solely an expansionist power.
When Kristin L. Hoganson arrived in Champaign, Illinois, after teaching at Harvard, studying at Yale, and living in the D.C. metro area with various stints overseas, she expected to find her new home, well, isolated. Even provincial. After all, she had landed in the American heartland, a place where the nation's identity exists in its pristine form. Or so we have been taught to believe. Struck by the gap between reputation and reality, she determined to get to the bottom of history and myth. The deeper she dug into the making of the modern heartland, the wider her story became as she realized that she'd uncovered an unheralded crossroads of people, commerce, and ideas. But the really interesting thing was that over the course of American history, even as the region's connections with the rest of the planet became increasingly dense and intricate, the idea of the rural Midwest as a steadfast heartland became a stronger and more stubbornly immovable myth. In enshrining a symbolic heart, the American people have repressed the kinds of stories that Hoganson tells, of sweeping breadth and depth and soul. In The Heartland, Kristin L. Hoganson drills deep into the center of the country, only to find a global story in the resulting core sample. A provocative and highly original work of historical scholarship, The Heartland speaks volumes about pressing preoccupations, among them identity and community, immigration and trade, and security and global power. And food. To read it is to be inoculated against using the word "heartland" unironically ever again
