# The Lies of the Land: Seeing Rural America for What It Is--And Isn't - Hardcover

by **Steven Conn** (Author)

**A "piercing, unsentimental" (_New Yorker_) 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.

### Author Biography

**Steven Conn** is the W. E. Smith Professor of History at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He is the author of many books, most recently _Nothing Succeeds Like Failure: The Sad History of American Business Schools_.

**Number of Pages:** 320

**Dimensions:** 0.69 x 9.22 x 6.36 IN

**Illustrated:** Yes

**Publication Date:** October 10, 2023

## Details

- **Price:** 29.0 USD
- **Vendor:** Books by splitShops
- **Type:** Books
- **Tags:** Books by splitShops, Shopify Collective

## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 29.00 USD | In stock |

## Images

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

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