{"product_id":"becoming-utopia-history-heritage-and-sustainability-in-the-american-midwest-paperback-softback-9781496247216","title":"Becoming Utopia; History, Heritage, and Sustainability in the American Midwest (Paperback \/ softback) 9781496247216","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eBecoming Utopia\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cfont size=\"5\"\u003eHistory, Heritage, and Sustainability in the American Midwest\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eMargaret E. Farrar (Author), Adam Kaul (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9781496247216, University of Nebraska Press\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003ePaperback \/ softback, published 1 July 2026\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e256 pages\u003cbr\u003e22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.388 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Heritage politics and environmental politics, both of which are active agents in the Bishop Hill community's ability to sustain itself, are also subjects of broader interest in twenty-first-century America. Within political science and anthropology, \u003ci\u003eBecoming Utopia\u003c\/i\u003e provides an excellent case study for how heritage and environmental decision-making play out at the local level.\"—Jennifer Eastman Attebery, author of \u003ci\u003eAs Legend Has It: History, Heritage, and the Construction of Swedish American Identity\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Why do some places become important to us? And what (and who) has to be devalued for them to accrue certain kinds of personal, historical, and economic values over time? \u003ci\u003eBecoming Utopia\u003c\/i\u003e answers these questions through a unique dialogue between American studies; rural anthropology; studies of place, landscape, and cultural meaning; critiques of settler colonialism and constructions of whiteness; and recent and ongoing critiques of cultural heritage and tourist industries around the world. It offers an invaluable contribution to each of these in turn, all while remaining empirically sound and carefully researched.\"—Joshua O. Reno, coauthor of \u003ci\u003eImagining the Heartland: White Supremacy and the American Midwest\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eBecoming Utopia\u003c\/i\u003e centers on the tiny community of Bishop Hill, Illinois, whose marketing materials call it \"Utopia on the Prairie,\" home to a radical communal religious sect that emigrated from Sweden in the 1840s. Through rich textual and ethnographic analyses, Margaret E. Farrar and Adam Kaul tell the story of what happens when a small, historically significant Midwestern community negotiates the contradictory impulses of twenty-first-century place-making. At first glance, Bishop Hill is simply a small heritage tourism destination in Midwestern flyover country, but further inspection reveals it to be a complex place that mixes a deep nostalgia for the past undercut by complex origin stories of displacement and colonialism, an active historic preservation movement amid futuristic green energy technologies built by multinational corporations, and a commitment to localism in the context of omnipresent globalization.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBased on fifteen years of fieldwork, \u003ci\u003eBecoming Utopia\u003c\/i\u003e is an interdisciplinary contribution to conversations about the importance and meaning of place-making, heritage-making, and sustainability (social, economic, and environmental) in the twenty-first century.\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eList of Illustrations\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAcknowledgments\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e1. Arriving: Utopia on the Prairie\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e2. Discovering: Bishop Hill as American Identity Story\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e3. Forgetting: Bishop Hill as Imperialist Amnesia\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e4. Remembering: Commemoration, Preservation, and Heritage\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e5. Creating: Fluid Swedish Heritages in the Twenty-First Century\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e6. Sustaining: Clean Energy Economies and Social Change\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e7. Departing: Utopia Revisited and Revised\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNotes\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBibliography\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIndex\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"University of Nebraska Press","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52600323309848,"sku":"9781496247216","price":21.56,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/becoming-utopia-history-heritage-and-sustainability-in-the-american-midwest-paperback-softback-9781496247216","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}