Contents -- Foreword by R. Douglas Hurt -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction - J.L. Anderson -- 1. A Landscape Transformed: Ecosystems and Natural Resources in the Midwest - James A. Pritchard -- 2. Ecology, Economy, Labor: The Midwestern Farm Landscape since 1945 - Kendra Smith-Howard -- 3. Beyond the Rust BELT: The Neglected History of the Rural Midwest's Industrialization after World War II - Wilson J. Warren -- 4. Midwestern Rural Communities in the Post-WWII Era to 2000 - Cornelia Butler Flora and Jan L. Flora -- 5. Uneasy Dependency: Rural and Farm Policy and the Midwest since 1945 - J.L. Anderson -- 6. Farm women in the Midwest since 1945 - Jenny Barker Devine -- 7. Childhood in the Rural Midwest since 1945 - Pamela Riney-Kehrberg -- 8. "The Whitest of Occupations"?-African Americans in the Rural Midwest, 1940-2010 - Debra A. Reid -- 9. Hispanics in the Midwest Since World War II - Jim Norris -- 10. Internal Alternate: The Midwestern Amish since 1945 - Steven D. Reschly -- Conclusion: The Indistinct Distinctiveness of Rural Midwestern Culture - David Danbom -- Contributors -- Index.