“Flyover country.” “Lost region.” Both are dour phrases describing the Midwest. Jon Lauck used the latter phrase as a title for his 2013 book calling for a renaissance of historical study of the Midwest. Four years before Lauck’s Lost Region, David S. Brown asserted in Beyond the Frontier that the Midwest has always been a central corridor, a hidden yet essential province in America. He saw it as a significant place because Midwestern historians between 1896-2008—including some leading lights in American intellectual history—profoundly shaped the historical profession. Those historians did not merely happen to all hail from the Midwest; the Read more