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The Lies of the Land: Seeing Rural America for What It Is―and Isn’t
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.
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.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published October 10, 2023
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1311 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
February 3, 2024
Page 123 (my book)
Only 1,500 people call Anna, Ohio home… The center of the village sits at the intersection of Main Street and Pike Street… Turn left and head south on Pike Street… and in just two miles you’ll see the Honda plant down Meranda Road on your right. You can’t miss it – it is Honda’s largest engine plant anywhere in the world.
The author’s premise is to do away with the mythic wonder of rural America – the white picket fences and the barns in the pastureland. He also questions the “constant crisis” of rural America.
Rural America has always been in a state of flux. It has always been involved in the business of capitalism in America.
Page 9
“Nostalgia is a dangerous thing.” Rural decline must be measured against the image of what we have… thought rural America ought to be, as much as against what it actually is.
Page 12
Black land dispossession, working conditions for Mexican labor, endemic poverty or reservation violence upon nonwhite people – are not included in [rural mythology].
The author outlines different aspects of how rural America has been integrated as part of American society. The military, particularly since the commencement of the Second World War, has particularly focused and infiltrated rural areas. There are military bases spread across the entire U.S. They acquired rural farmland because it was already flattened for their air bases. They even used the buildings acquired from the dislocation of the former inhabitants for target practice. They required these large tracts of land to test out their latest artillery and tanks. Residents of the surrounding countryside built their livelihoods around these bases – and their populations grew. They saw it as a patriotic duty – first to sell-out their land to the military – and then to work in jobs supplying or supporting the military. They were so entwined with it that many of their young people volunteered to serve. There are far more people recruited from rural areas rather than urban areas.
Page 74
Rural states – the Dakotas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana – suffered the highest death rates in Iraq.
Problems with this dependency surfaced at the end of the Cold War in the 1990s when some military bases closed down – much to the detriment of the surrounding communities. Their main source of employment evaporated with nothing to replace it. The author also points out the military does an inadequate job of cleaning up the environment. When they depart, some of the residue left behind is highly toxic.
The US Army Corps of Engineers literally changed much of the rural landscape during the 20th century by building several dams – some on Indian land which, as usual, had been guaranteed in perpetuity. The land of the Seneca Nation in New York State was flooded for dubious reasons.
As the opening quote at the beginning illustrates, companies also were attracted to rural America. Taxes were less, land was cheaper, there were monetary incentives, there were less building and environmental restrictions, and sometimes they could get cheaper labour with no unions to contend with.
Page 119 in the 1950s and 1960s
[With] the vast expansion of the nation’s road network… “industrialists discovered they could locate plants wherever they wished”. – Simon Knudsen
Page 128
While the interstate highway system was designed in part to connect urban centers, it is the space in between those centers that has become industrialized in the second half of the twentieth century.
The conundrum that arose is, that with more industrialization, taxes started to rise, real estate expanded when more people moved into the area – and everything started to look more urban.
The same could be said for the suburbs – the more successful the suburb became over the years the more it started to resemble a city – with higher taxes, more congestion, higher housing costs… The author also points out that it was not only city-dwellers moving to the suburbs, but rural people leaving the countryside for work. Their farms and homes were being bought up by agribusiness or large industrial corporations – so they sold up and moved to suburbia. As the author states, suburbia is more post-rural given the influx from the countryside.
Page 172
Corporations control the seed that goes into the ground, the chemicals that saturate the soil, the equipment used to plant, spray, and harvest, the trucks that haul the product away, and the processing operations that turn the raw material into something profitable.
Page 211
[By 1966] only 6 percent of the nation’s population still lived on a farm.
This an interesting and provocative book. He dispels with the aura of self-sufficient rural living. The life of the rural inhabitant has always been tied to business, government and the Pentagon. In the 1940s and 1950s they liked shopping at Woolworth, then later Walmart, instead of the small store on main street. They also sold their land when the opportunity arose – and moved to suburbia.
Only 1,500 people call Anna, Ohio home… The center of the village sits at the intersection of Main Street and Pike Street… Turn left and head south on Pike Street… and in just two miles you’ll see the Honda plant down Meranda Road on your right. You can’t miss it – it is Honda’s largest engine plant anywhere in the world.
The author’s premise is to do away with the mythic wonder of rural America – the white picket fences and the barns in the pastureland. He also questions the “constant crisis” of rural America.
Rural America has always been in a state of flux. It has always been involved in the business of capitalism in America.
Page 9
“Nostalgia is a dangerous thing.” Rural decline must be measured against the image of what we have… thought rural America ought to be, as much as against what it actually is.
Page 12
Black land dispossession, working conditions for Mexican labor, endemic poverty or reservation violence upon nonwhite people – are not included in [rural mythology].
The author outlines different aspects of how rural America has been integrated as part of American society. The military, particularly since the commencement of the Second World War, has particularly focused and infiltrated rural areas. There are military bases spread across the entire U.S. They acquired rural farmland because it was already flattened for their air bases. They even used the buildings acquired from the dislocation of the former inhabitants for target practice. They required these large tracts of land to test out their latest artillery and tanks. Residents of the surrounding countryside built their livelihoods around these bases – and their populations grew. They saw it as a patriotic duty – first to sell-out their land to the military – and then to work in jobs supplying or supporting the military. They were so entwined with it that many of their young people volunteered to serve. There are far more people recruited from rural areas rather than urban areas.
Page 74
Rural states – the Dakotas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana – suffered the highest death rates in Iraq.
Problems with this dependency surfaced at the end of the Cold War in the 1990s when some military bases closed down – much to the detriment of the surrounding communities. Their main source of employment evaporated with nothing to replace it. The author also points out the military does an inadequate job of cleaning up the environment. When they depart, some of the residue left behind is highly toxic.
The US Army Corps of Engineers literally changed much of the rural landscape during the 20th century by building several dams – some on Indian land which, as usual, had been guaranteed in perpetuity. The land of the Seneca Nation in New York State was flooded for dubious reasons.
As the opening quote at the beginning illustrates, companies also were attracted to rural America. Taxes were less, land was cheaper, there were monetary incentives, there were less building and environmental restrictions, and sometimes they could get cheaper labour with no unions to contend with.
Page 119 in the 1950s and 1960s
[With] the vast expansion of the nation’s road network… “industrialists discovered they could locate plants wherever they wished”. – Simon Knudsen
Page 128
While the interstate highway system was designed in part to connect urban centers, it is the space in between those centers that has become industrialized in the second half of the twentieth century.
The conundrum that arose is, that with more industrialization, taxes started to rise, real estate expanded when more people moved into the area – and everything started to look more urban.
The same could be said for the suburbs – the more successful the suburb became over the years the more it started to resemble a city – with higher taxes, more congestion, higher housing costs… The author also points out that it was not only city-dwellers moving to the suburbs, but rural people leaving the countryside for work. Their farms and homes were being bought up by agribusiness or large industrial corporations – so they sold up and moved to suburbia. As the author states, suburbia is more post-rural given the influx from the countryside.
Page 172
Corporations control the seed that goes into the ground, the chemicals that saturate the soil, the equipment used to plant, spray, and harvest, the trucks that haul the product away, and the processing operations that turn the raw material into something profitable.
Page 211
[By 1966] only 6 percent of the nation’s population still lived on a farm.
This an interesting and provocative book. He dispels with the aura of self-sufficient rural living. The life of the rural inhabitant has always been tied to business, government and the Pentagon. In the 1940s and 1950s they liked shopping at Woolworth, then later Walmart, instead of the small store on main street. They also sold their land when the opportunity arose – and moved to suburbia.
January 8, 2024
This really smart treatise on rural America isn’t setting out to fix its problems. He pointedly shies away from calling attention to a “rural crisis” or suggesting that there might be policy solutions. Conn is more interested in explaining the realities of rural spaces from the standpoint of most of its history and denude many of the myths about small-town values and cultures that still persist. In a sentence, the book is this: Rural spaces—whether agricultural, extractive, or the more recently tourist oriented—have always been at the center of and central to the nation’s political economy, driven by the same relationships to capital and the same drives to profit as anywhere else.
As I stare at that thesis after the fact, I’m impressed by how benign it can come across. But it does fly in the face of a lot of mythology that says that small towns and “empty” frontier spaces (“rustic”, “quaint”, “timeless”) are either peripheral or forgotten places in the political and economic history of the country. On the contrary, Conn writes – those rural areas are artificial and modernist and they have had a front seat in witnessing national developments for the entirety of the country’s history. To demonstrate this reality, he pulls together stories about towns and people on four broad dimensions – militarization, industrialization, corporatization, and suburbanization – and argues that rural areas have been “touched” every bit as completely as urban ones, and continually in ways that are game-changing. But when Conn writes, “One could conclude that not only was rural America never the heart or the backbone or whatever other piece of the national anatomy, it has not been the mainstream of our national life for nearly two centuries,” I think what he really means is that these rural spaces were never self-sustaining. They were always at the mercy of larger forces. We see this especially in statements like this:
The challenge we have facing rural poverty squarely is exacerbated first by our racialized conception of poverty, by our lazy conception that poverty is urban, and by our enduring notion that rural people are rugged, self-sufficient individualists not dependent on government money.
And there are a lot of zingers. Consider:
To call 1,500 acres of corn, genetically modified to withstand harsh chemical pesticides and intended for a high-fructose corn syrup factory, a “farm” is a bit like calling a highly automated GM factory a “workshop.”
Much of the Appalachian coal country has been turned into a postindustrial moonscape of slag heaps, eroded hillsides, toxic retention ponds, and abandoned towns.
This seamless connection between Christian sanctimony and the exploitation of female labor is another thing Dollar General shares with Walmart.
As Native people were cleared militarily from the space, it wasn’t settlers who followed so much as real estate investors. The urge to flip property for a tidy profit seems to be woven into the national DNA.
Suburban development is built on a basic irony. If those suburbanites who left the city were drawn by the promise of more space, less traffic, fewer people, lower crime rates, and all the rest, then many seemed resentful as their suburb filled with more and more development. Indeed, there is almost something of planned obsolescence in the promise of suburbia.
Conn saves his greatest frustration towards those who would claim that rural America, the “real America”, was ever reflective of self-reliance, independence, and simpler living. Instead, it was always at the mercy of these massive forces. And I really enjoyed reading about some of the more specific histories the author chose to call upon – the corporatization of agriculture; the ruralization of the military; the widespread impact of the Army Corps of Engineers; the growth of Dollar General; the drive to use industry to revitalize struggling rural areas. Rural industrialization occurring simultaneously with urban deindustrialization.
Good medicine, high entertainment value. But best administered with a stiff drink.
As I stare at that thesis after the fact, I’m impressed by how benign it can come across. But it does fly in the face of a lot of mythology that says that small towns and “empty” frontier spaces (“rustic”, “quaint”, “timeless”) are either peripheral or forgotten places in the political and economic history of the country. On the contrary, Conn writes – those rural areas are artificial and modernist and they have had a front seat in witnessing national developments for the entirety of the country’s history. To demonstrate this reality, he pulls together stories about towns and people on four broad dimensions – militarization, industrialization, corporatization, and suburbanization – and argues that rural areas have been “touched” every bit as completely as urban ones, and continually in ways that are game-changing. But when Conn writes, “One could conclude that not only was rural America never the heart or the backbone or whatever other piece of the national anatomy, it has not been the mainstream of our national life for nearly two centuries,” I think what he really means is that these rural spaces were never self-sustaining. They were always at the mercy of larger forces. We see this especially in statements like this:
The challenge we have facing rural poverty squarely is exacerbated first by our racialized conception of poverty, by our lazy conception that poverty is urban, and by our enduring notion that rural people are rugged, self-sufficient individualists not dependent on government money.
And there are a lot of zingers. Consider:
To call 1,500 acres of corn, genetically modified to withstand harsh chemical pesticides and intended for a high-fructose corn syrup factory, a “farm” is a bit like calling a highly automated GM factory a “workshop.”
Much of the Appalachian coal country has been turned into a postindustrial moonscape of slag heaps, eroded hillsides, toxic retention ponds, and abandoned towns.
This seamless connection between Christian sanctimony and the exploitation of female labor is another thing Dollar General shares with Walmart.
As Native people were cleared militarily from the space, it wasn’t settlers who followed so much as real estate investors. The urge to flip property for a tidy profit seems to be woven into the national DNA.
Suburban development is built on a basic irony. If those suburbanites who left the city were drawn by the promise of more space, less traffic, fewer people, lower crime rates, and all the rest, then many seemed resentful as their suburb filled with more and more development. Indeed, there is almost something of planned obsolescence in the promise of suburbia.
Conn saves his greatest frustration towards those who would claim that rural America, the “real America”, was ever reflective of self-reliance, independence, and simpler living. Instead, it was always at the mercy of these massive forces. And I really enjoyed reading about some of the more specific histories the author chose to call upon – the corporatization of agriculture; the ruralization of the military; the widespread impact of the Army Corps of Engineers; the growth of Dollar General; the drive to use industry to revitalize struggling rural areas. Rural industrialization occurring simultaneously with urban deindustrialization.
Good medicine, high entertainment value. But best administered with a stiff drink.
September 24, 2024
Maybe a week ago I was commenting on the irony to a friend of mine that "rural America" as I dubbed it at the time was so disdainful of city-dwellers and the urban lifestyle given that their entire livelihoods depends on them. Not just in the crops they produce, but in the fairs and festivals they put on, the lifestyle they promote, the music celebrating them. So many people in my small town in Texas put on their cowboy hats and boots, listen to music about living out in the country, and similarly look down on some far away city-dwellers in Austin while working in the exact style of office but dressed up in country cosplay.
To those who know me personally, I make no secret of my disdain for nostalgia, and perhaps that is why I have such an aversion to these people who in all ways live the rural/country lifestyle with the exception of actually living in the country or doing any rural work for a living. Much like in my own field of librarianship there is a hilarious disconnect between the nostalgic idealized version of what a librarian is that is intensely at odds with reality, this nostalgic idea of what rural, self-sufficient, rugged everyman living is perhaps even more a fiction that has never truly existed - or if it has, it was a brief flash of time, here and gone before we ever realized it was there.
And yet, far from fanning the flames of my disdain, I found that Conn's short treatise on the genesis and proliferation of "rural America" elicited in me an emotion that many persons of rural America would hate even more - pity. Like many Americans, despite my desire to never have to work on a farm ever again (I spent the summers of my youth on my aunt's ranch thus curing me of any romantic delusions of farm living), I actually have a great respect for those who grow our food and pull everything we take for granted out of the ground, whether it be crops or ore. And also like many Americans, I have a desire to make sure that the people who do this work are taken care of and continue doing what they do.
Unfortunately, due to the trio of militarization, industrialization, corporatization, Conn shows, rural America (if such a thing ever truly existed) has been destroyed, warped, and distorted beyond recognition for those who seek the bucolic pastoral scenes of yesteryear. It is a frustrating dance to witness as rural America continually embraces wholeheartedly the influence of these outside forces for the gains in capital and efficiency while resisting all the change that comes with them. The end result is a strange Neo-feudalism in which literally everything about farming may be owned by six or seven corporations with the farmers themselves in the middle as almost an afterthought. They cannot make a living without the corporations or government subsidies, yet routinely rail against both while continuing to take more of the assistance they offer and in the process lose more and more of their independence and livelihoods.
But here I will stop trying to poorly summarize Conn's theses and instead say that Conn's work is a fascinating deep dive into small town America and its rural identity. It is refreshingly free of proffered solutions, electing instead to spell out the problems and nature of these problems as clearly and succinctly as possible given the complexity of their origins and histories. In this way, we get a far more accurate - if incredibly less idealized - portrait of rural America, one that despite its unappealing nature, should not be ignored.
To those who know me personally, I make no secret of my disdain for nostalgia, and perhaps that is why I have such an aversion to these people who in all ways live the rural/country lifestyle with the exception of actually living in the country or doing any rural work for a living. Much like in my own field of librarianship there is a hilarious disconnect between the nostalgic idealized version of what a librarian is that is intensely at odds with reality, this nostalgic idea of what rural, self-sufficient, rugged everyman living is perhaps even more a fiction that has never truly existed - or if it has, it was a brief flash of time, here and gone before we ever realized it was there.
And yet, far from fanning the flames of my disdain, I found that Conn's short treatise on the genesis and proliferation of "rural America" elicited in me an emotion that many persons of rural America would hate even more - pity. Like many Americans, despite my desire to never have to work on a farm ever again (I spent the summers of my youth on my aunt's ranch thus curing me of any romantic delusions of farm living), I actually have a great respect for those who grow our food and pull everything we take for granted out of the ground, whether it be crops or ore. And also like many Americans, I have a desire to make sure that the people who do this work are taken care of and continue doing what they do.
Unfortunately, due to the trio of militarization, industrialization, corporatization, Conn shows, rural America (if such a thing ever truly existed) has been destroyed, warped, and distorted beyond recognition for those who seek the bucolic pastoral scenes of yesteryear. It is a frustrating dance to witness as rural America continually embraces wholeheartedly the influence of these outside forces for the gains in capital and efficiency while resisting all the change that comes with them. The end result is a strange Neo-feudalism in which literally everything about farming may be owned by six or seven corporations with the farmers themselves in the middle as almost an afterthought. They cannot make a living without the corporations or government subsidies, yet routinely rail against both while continuing to take more of the assistance they offer and in the process lose more and more of their independence and livelihoods.
But here I will stop trying to poorly summarize Conn's theses and instead say that Conn's work is a fascinating deep dive into small town America and its rural identity. It is refreshingly free of proffered solutions, electing instead to spell out the problems and nature of these problems as clearly and succinctly as possible given the complexity of their origins and histories. In this way, we get a far more accurate - if incredibly less idealized - portrait of rural America, one that despite its unappealing nature, should not be ignored.
December 7, 2025
High rating for good writing, good continuity of story, good research and arguments.
Working in western US is a bit different from the Midwest and East that Conn mostly describes. However, not that much different. In my travels and work across this country, I have seen many examples such as described by Conn, so I believe the story he put together is solid. His thesis has some exceptions, but overall this book provides us with some deeper understanding of the rural areas we work in and the perspectives of the people we work with.
Speaking true to what we see here in the West, Conn starts off (p. vii) with the statement: "Economically, rural America relies on agriculture, and it relies on extractive and manufacturing industries; it also depends on tourism and recreation." He then moves on to describe the close ties rural residents have to urban areas, how the definition of "rural" is varied and indefinite. The image of "a solitary driver piloting a combine roughly the size of a two story house to gobble up ... Kansas wheat ... [but] he's paying constant attention to wheat prices in Chicago or some other global commodities market as his GPS pilots the highly sophisticated piece of farm technology with a precision that would have make the Apollo crews envious" stuck with me throughout the reading of this book. The fantasy of the western cowboy and the idyllic life in rural America is a main subject of scorn in this book.
Conn presents us with four major forces that have impacted the concept of "rural", have decreased it and changed it: militarization, industrialization, corporatization, and suburbanization (p. 16). He shows how each of these has weakened the idyllic image of a farmer close to the land with a lot of space, to create a "rural" population that is more like the image of suburban and growing small towns, with fewer people doing the hard work of farming. He notes (p. 17): "Americans had turned rural space into ... built environments ... severed almost entirely from the existing ecologies."
On page 10 we see some examples of how the "rugged individualists" are actually beneficiaries of government support. We see that here in the West with the dependence of many timber contractors on public lands with cheap/free trees for harvest, and cattle ranchers receiving cheap grazing allotments on public lands. Conn also presents examples for the many cases where "the Pentagon is the only game in town." This impact of the military contributes to the strong support of the military by rural communities.
Noting from page 138, the "extractive industries" (coal, oil, timber, and I would include grazing) have dominated parts of rural America, and Conn notes how "... miners, lumberjacks, or farmers, were just as enmeshed in the world of corporations as any urban factory worker...". Financing big equipment is part of this story.
Page 234: "The suburbanization of rural space created legal frictions in three broad areas: annexation and incorporation, zoning, and nuisance laws." Here in the West we see strong opposition to anything that restricts what a person can do on their land, or even on public land they should be sharing with everyone else.
The concluding chapter starting on page 247 is worth the read. Conn brings together many ideas for exploring places or spaces, and how the current residents arrived at where they are with the fantasies and realities of "rural." The history that got us here has been long, and changes have been hard. Understanding this may help us all in living and working together.
Working in western US is a bit different from the Midwest and East that Conn mostly describes. However, not that much different. In my travels and work across this country, I have seen many examples such as described by Conn, so I believe the story he put together is solid. His thesis has some exceptions, but overall this book provides us with some deeper understanding of the rural areas we work in and the perspectives of the people we work with.
Speaking true to what we see here in the West, Conn starts off (p. vii) with the statement: "Economically, rural America relies on agriculture, and it relies on extractive and manufacturing industries; it also depends on tourism and recreation." He then moves on to describe the close ties rural residents have to urban areas, how the definition of "rural" is varied and indefinite. The image of "a solitary driver piloting a combine roughly the size of a two story house to gobble up ... Kansas wheat ... [but] he's paying constant attention to wheat prices in Chicago or some other global commodities market as his GPS pilots the highly sophisticated piece of farm technology with a precision that would have make the Apollo crews envious" stuck with me throughout the reading of this book. The fantasy of the western cowboy and the idyllic life in rural America is a main subject of scorn in this book.
Conn presents us with four major forces that have impacted the concept of "rural", have decreased it and changed it: militarization, industrialization, corporatization, and suburbanization (p. 16). He shows how each of these has weakened the idyllic image of a farmer close to the land with a lot of space, to create a "rural" population that is more like the image of suburban and growing small towns, with fewer people doing the hard work of farming. He notes (p. 17): "Americans had turned rural space into ... built environments ... severed almost entirely from the existing ecologies."
On page 10 we see some examples of how the "rugged individualists" are actually beneficiaries of government support. We see that here in the West with the dependence of many timber contractors on public lands with cheap/free trees for harvest, and cattle ranchers receiving cheap grazing allotments on public lands. Conn also presents examples for the many cases where "the Pentagon is the only game in town." This impact of the military contributes to the strong support of the military by rural communities.
Noting from page 138, the "extractive industries" (coal, oil, timber, and I would include grazing) have dominated parts of rural America, and Conn notes how "... miners, lumberjacks, or farmers, were just as enmeshed in the world of corporations as any urban factory worker...". Financing big equipment is part of this story.
Page 234: "The suburbanization of rural space created legal frictions in three broad areas: annexation and incorporation, zoning, and nuisance laws." Here in the West we see strong opposition to anything that restricts what a person can do on their land, or even on public land they should be sharing with everyone else.
The concluding chapter starting on page 247 is worth the read. Conn brings together many ideas for exploring places or spaces, and how the current residents arrived at where they are with the fantasies and realities of "rural." The history that got us here has been long, and changes have been hard. Understanding this may help us all in living and working together.
December 21, 2023
Conn easily demonstrates his primary point, that rural America is not wholly separate from, but rather part and parcel of America as a whole. He persuasively explains how the rural agrarian myth is just that, a myth. On this front, Conn's argument is not entirely new but builds on a growing list of works clearing the air about this. I found that his inclusion of the modern military presence in rural areas to be a thoughtful addition, as we mostly think about historical military conquests of the interior of America, not modern incursions.
Part IV of the book is Conn's biggest contribution to this space. He reconceptualizes suburbs as post-rural spaces to analyze them not as places where urbanites fled, but which were once rural and are filled with former ruralites. This perspective is new to me, and I think it is fresh way to consider suburbs and all of their problems (and perhaps their solutions). Conn attempts to pull this into a political direction (Chapter 9) which I do not find entirely convincing. I think he has something, but I am not sure that he has developed it fully.
In Part IV and the Conclusion, I feel that Conn is showing bias against ruralites and their visions of the world, however flawed they may be. Conn seems to have rejected the Jeffersonian ideal not only has impractical or inefficient but as morally problematic. I am not sure that I agree. Conn further shifts the perspective from "rural places" to "rural spaces," an interesting difference which I think is worth considering. He argues that urban and rural are now on a continuum, which seems fair enough, and I would agree that the issue is more about "space" than "place" at this point, but they are not unrelated. I am not convinced that "rural" as a place is nonexistent or a myth, though I would concede it is a relatively weak distinction.
I'm likely biased, but I simply cannot accept that the town of 1,200 people in northeast Nebraska where I lived is merely a different variant of New York City based on population density. Conn's right, it is industrial, corporatized, militarized and certainly not reflective of Jeffersonian agrarianism. But there are still some hints of that ideal there, even if diluted. At least if you live in a truly "rural space", not suburbia, you have the hope of achieving some of the agrarian ideals: ownership, self-sufficiency, local democracy, and personal connection. Most ruralites do not achieve them, and most do not even hope of doing so, despite what they may say, as Conn rightly points out. Still, what is wrong with dreaming of such a world?
Part IV of the book is Conn's biggest contribution to this space. He reconceptualizes suburbs as post-rural spaces to analyze them not as places where urbanites fled, but which were once rural and are filled with former ruralites. This perspective is new to me, and I think it is fresh way to consider suburbs and all of their problems (and perhaps their solutions). Conn attempts to pull this into a political direction (Chapter 9) which I do not find entirely convincing. I think he has something, but I am not sure that he has developed it fully.
In Part IV and the Conclusion, I feel that Conn is showing bias against ruralites and their visions of the world, however flawed they may be. Conn seems to have rejected the Jeffersonian ideal not only has impractical or inefficient but as morally problematic. I am not sure that I agree. Conn further shifts the perspective from "rural places" to "rural spaces," an interesting difference which I think is worth considering. He argues that urban and rural are now on a continuum, which seems fair enough, and I would agree that the issue is more about "space" than "place" at this point, but they are not unrelated. I am not convinced that "rural" as a place is nonexistent or a myth, though I would concede it is a relatively weak distinction.
I'm likely biased, but I simply cannot accept that the town of 1,200 people in northeast Nebraska where I lived is merely a different variant of New York City based on population density. Conn's right, it is industrial, corporatized, militarized and certainly not reflective of Jeffersonian agrarianism. But there are still some hints of that ideal there, even if diluted. At least if you live in a truly "rural space", not suburbia, you have the hope of achieving some of the agrarian ideals: ownership, self-sufficiency, local democracy, and personal connection. Most ruralites do not achieve them, and most do not even hope of doing so, despite what they may say, as Conn rightly points out. Still, what is wrong with dreaming of such a world?
July 4, 2024
I grew up in a small community with a population of less than 100. My dad was a farmer and my earliest memories are of that little village and that farm. I feel like my background is firmly rural but not American. Saskatchewan is a Canadian province. Still, other than the massive presence of the US military, I think my experiences were not unlike those of people who grew up in similar circumstances just south of the border in North Dakota or Montana.
This book explodes a lot of myths about rural life. It’s not that bucolic world as seen through the rose-colored glasses of so many movies and stories that have been produced over the last couple hundred years. Our physical circumstances may be different, but we’re not worlds apart from the people in the cities. We are not more virtuous, simpler, or more hard-working either. All the economic and social forces that have shaped the cities have shaped the country as well. This book does a terrific job of laying out the proof of that.
This is a valuable book that tells it like it is.
I’m just adding this because I feel like venting on the Internet. I don’t expect anyone to actually read it, so here goes.
Do you dream of moving to a lovely house in the country? Well here are some things to consider.
Where is your water going to come from? A well? Will you need a cistern? Is it safe to drink? Maybe you should get it tested. If you don’t, no one else will. If your well water is hard, (filled with dissolved minerals) as well water often is, you’re going to need a water softener to avoid prematurely killing one water heater after another.
Where does the water go when you flush your toilet? You’re going to need a septic tank and you better make sure to get that thing pumped out regularly.
If you live somewhere with winter, snow removal will be your responsibility. Have fun with that.
You’re going to need a reliable vehicle. Even if it’s fuel-efficient, expect to burn a lot of gas to get anywhere. Also if you live in a big country, an electric car probably won’t have the range needed to be practical. Country roads tend to have more gravel than pavement. This will involve a lot of flung rocks from vehicles you meet which will be very bad for your windshield.
If you enjoy the ‘series of tubes’ known as the Internet, expect a very slow connection, or none at all.
If you have medical issues, living way out in the country might be a terrible idea.
If none of this bothers you, then by all means move to the country.
This book explodes a lot of myths about rural life. It’s not that bucolic world as seen through the rose-colored glasses of so many movies and stories that have been produced over the last couple hundred years. Our physical circumstances may be different, but we’re not worlds apart from the people in the cities. We are not more virtuous, simpler, or more hard-working either. All the economic and social forces that have shaped the cities have shaped the country as well. This book does a terrific job of laying out the proof of that.
This is a valuable book that tells it like it is.
I’m just adding this because I feel like venting on the Internet. I don’t expect anyone to actually read it, so here goes.
Do you dream of moving to a lovely house in the country? Well here are some things to consider.
Where is your water going to come from? A well? Will you need a cistern? Is it safe to drink? Maybe you should get it tested. If you don’t, no one else will. If your well water is hard, (filled with dissolved minerals) as well water often is, you’re going to need a water softener to avoid prematurely killing one water heater after another.
Where does the water go when you flush your toilet? You’re going to need a septic tank and you better make sure to get that thing pumped out regularly.
If you live somewhere with winter, snow removal will be your responsibility. Have fun with that.
You’re going to need a reliable vehicle. Even if it’s fuel-efficient, expect to burn a lot of gas to get anywhere. Also if you live in a big country, an electric car probably won’t have the range needed to be practical. Country roads tend to have more gravel than pavement. This will involve a lot of flung rocks from vehicles you meet which will be very bad for your windshield.
If you enjoy the ‘series of tubes’ known as the Internet, expect a very slow connection, or none at all.
If you have medical issues, living way out in the country might be a terrible idea.
If none of this bothers you, then by all means move to the country.
March 24, 2024
In a perusal of my library’s new book section, I came across this book. The blurb fit with what I’ve been reading recently, removing myths about places and looking at them with verifiable facts. As someone who has one side of the family from suburbia California and the other from ”rural” South Dakota, I’m always interested in poking holes into the myth of American rural spaces and towns.
The author looks at the rural spaces from the point of view of militarization, industrialization, corporatization and suburbanization. Essentially what comes out of all this is rural equals non-urban. ie anything not of the city.
In _The Fifth Risk_ there is a page where US government officials talk about ”rural” spaces. One has to do with the urban centers heavily subsidize the folks living out in the rural areas. If the US taxpayer didn’t do so, there would be even more empty towns that we see now. The other was at a ribbon cutting ceremony for a billion dollar project to better a rural area. The leaders pulled the US government people aside and said to not say it was a federal program. Otherwise the people in the area would dismiss it out of pride.
In _Lies of the Land_, the author provides the data and insight as to just how tied to the hip the rural spaces are to the urban. The military can drop a base onto a bunch of scrubland and cause a big town to be built next door, much to the locals admiration. If the military abandons the base, then the area collapses economically, as there isn’t a diversified tax base. The same goes for a factory that gets placed in the middle of corn fields. The locals get new jobs, attract others for the same jobs, and build a bigger town making most people happy. But if the company shutters the factory, then it takes the whole town down with it.
The book does well to disrupt the myths of the American non-urban spaces. It would help everyone to have a common set of facts to work from, as friction between the urban and non-urban spaces will continue. My relatives live in a bigger town in South Dakota than I do on the West Coast, yet they consider themselves rural and I consider myself suburban. As the author points out, the rural folks are wanting to hold onto something that never was. The myths that TV perpetuate harm everyone. I like the point of the author, which is that the rural space is simply an extension of the urban space and always has been.
The author looks at the rural spaces from the point of view of militarization, industrialization, corporatization and suburbanization. Essentially what comes out of all this is rural equals non-urban. ie anything not of the city.
In _The Fifth Risk_ there is a page where US government officials talk about ”rural” spaces. One has to do with the urban centers heavily subsidize the folks living out in the rural areas. If the US taxpayer didn’t do so, there would be even more empty towns that we see now. The other was at a ribbon cutting ceremony for a billion dollar project to better a rural area. The leaders pulled the US government people aside and said to not say it was a federal program. Otherwise the people in the area would dismiss it out of pride.
In _Lies of the Land_, the author provides the data and insight as to just how tied to the hip the rural spaces are to the urban. The military can drop a base onto a bunch of scrubland and cause a big town to be built next door, much to the locals admiration. If the military abandons the base, then the area collapses economically, as there isn’t a diversified tax base. The same goes for a factory that gets placed in the middle of corn fields. The locals get new jobs, attract others for the same jobs, and build a bigger town making most people happy. But if the company shutters the factory, then it takes the whole town down with it.
The book does well to disrupt the myths of the American non-urban spaces. It would help everyone to have a common set of facts to work from, as friction between the urban and non-urban spaces will continue. My relatives live in a bigger town in South Dakota than I do on the West Coast, yet they consider themselves rural and I consider myself suburban. As the author points out, the rural folks are wanting to hold onto something that never was. The myths that TV perpetuate harm everyone. I like the point of the author, which is that the rural space is simply an extension of the urban space and always has been.
March 30, 2024
As a son of parents who grew up on farms, I now live in the suburbs and have spent a great deal of reading and research navigating the urban, rural and suburban landscape of my life and the country at large. Reading The Lies of the Land as I drove across the Midwest and east coast, Conn’s thesis that there really is nothing rural about the US, only memories of a nonexistent past, really resonates with the politics of our time. The book does a solid job looking at four rural “izarions:” militarization, industrialization, corporatization, and suburbanization. Driving past Levittown and the shuttered Lordstown GM plant, through farmlands cut through with interstates, past crumbling barns and abandoned houses, and around Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Chicago, the “place” of memory has been replaced with the space of urban, suburban and rural communities. Some brand new and looking just like others. Some abandoned and crumbling. The politics of these changes devolves into gaslighting and dismissiveness on both sides. In the end, Conn sees rural dwellers searching for something I wonder whether it can ever be found: “a positive, proactive vision of what a rural future might be.” In the end that vision seems to be what it stands against rather than anything it ever really stood for. In all, Conn’s book is a lively read about a complicated subject that he is able to boil down into an essence of American life that is ever changing and never what we remember it to be.
October 13, 2024
Fascinating non-fiction examination of the current state of rural America and how it got to be the way it is. The author postulates that 1) militarization, 2) industrialization, 3) corporatization and 4) suburbanization account for the financial, cultural and political characteristics of rural America in the 2020s. The impact of the military follows from the initial widespread building of forts to house the soldiers necessary to protect settlers from the Native Americans whose land they stole (Homestead Acts) followed by the expansion of towns around those forts and the actions of the Army Corp of Engineers to move rivers and streams for reasons often at cross -purposes with local agriculture. As time moved on, the industrial revolution brought with it large farm machinery so expensive that farms had to be combined becoming larger and larger in order to afford the cost of the machines thus shrinking in the number of farmers. These financial considerations resulted in the influx of large corporations to own the farms and larger and larger chain stores / operations, that could benefit from the economies of scale, to process the farm output. This then led to an increasing number of farmers being forced to sell out and move to the suburbs, bringing with them their basic anti- government, every man for himself individualism which didn't really work in the country, hence the need to move and doesn't work in the urban environment either. Conn concludes that the rural areas of America will always require government subsidies if they are to experience the benefits of high density urban living without paying the cost.
Conn insists that Rural America is not and perhaps has never been the idyllic paradise that it is so often rapsodized to be or have been. He offers no suggestions as to how current problems should be addressed while demanding that honest appraisal is the only appropriate baseline.
Conn insists that Rural America is not and perhaps has never been the idyllic paradise that it is so often rapsodized to be or have been. He offers no suggestions as to how current problems should be addressed while demanding that honest appraisal is the only appropriate baseline.
May 2, 2025
This book had such a clear thesis and completely reshaped the way that I conceive of the discourse in American politics surrounding pastoralism and Rural America. Rural America is no less high-modernist than Urban America and the suburbs. The author discusses four main characteristics that define the history and present of the mythological rural militarization, industrialization, corporatization and suburbanization. We all dream of a cottage core fantasy that is community-oriented and culturally rich in the countryside, but that has not existed in America maybe ever. instead, we have rugged, individualism, racism, poverty, pollution, and opioid epidemic and all the things that define this hypercapitalist Society. I loved that this book used many statistics and went into specific examples of the historical evolution of the US since the end of the civil War, especially focusing on the Great depression and the '70s and '80s. I was especially fascinated by the corporatization of everything in the Agrieconomy except for the acreage itself which is shaped by mostly family. farmed co-ops. but these beloved family farms are no less ingrained in big money interests than the rest of this country.
December 24, 2023
The Lies of the Land: Seeing Rural America for What It Is―and Isn’t is an interesting history of elements of how the rural United States, at least west of the Appalachians, became what it is today, and an argument that it isn't really a separate "rural" place in the sense that one finds in countries where the rural population aren't descended from settler-colonists who only moved there in the past two centuries, but rather a place fundamentally and historically tied into the capitalist economy of the US as a whole. That said, it felt a bit too short and disjointed to really make this argument fully: it's more a collection of vignettes than something that feels like a true monograph.
December 15, 2023
Steven Conn looks past the nostalgia and the rhetoric to make the case that rural America is shaped by the same forces as the rest of the country. These shape-shifting forces include the military, industry, retail, and suburban development. Along the way, he peppers his narrative with zingers and take-downs of common wisdom and the pundits that perpetuate the myth of rural innocence. In the final analysis, the author questions whether the rural-urban distinction carries much meaning in the context of economics and politics. “The Lies of the Land” comes at a critical time. Given how the Constitution empowers the least populated states, it is vitally important that we understand how our rural areas tick. Read more at bookmanreader.blogspot.com
December 23, 2024
The Lies of the Land was a very fascinating read that flips romantic narratives about rural America on their heads. Conn’s claims are incredibly well-defended, and I appreciate how he weaves in anecdotes for reader interest. I did find myself wondering if a person with a more long-standing connection to a rural community could provide a counterpoint— I felt that the conclusion of Conn’s argument was a bit bleak and unsympathetic to rural America. I would have appreciated a brief roadmap (or even just a few ideas) for the creation of genuine rural places. Overall, definitely changed my perspective on nonmetropolitan America and the forces that shape it.
January 20, 2024
This is an excellent book if you're interested in the distinctions we make beween urban and rural. Rural America is chock full of military bases, Native Reservations, forests, some of which are to be harvested, and the people who take care of all of these institutions. That's the seeing Rural America for what it is part. What it isn't is some kind of fantasyland of unspoiled nature, although rural America is where our National Parks - tourist draws - are located.
March 9, 2024
A really fascinating topic that tracks the reality of rural America and how policies directed towards supporting a mythologized version of it has actually impacted rural America. It also delves deeply into the ways in which rural America has been taken advantage of and has played a part in being taken advantage of. That being said, the book is very dry and not a very engaging read. The topic is what carries it.
April 5, 2024
This was my companies March book club read for non fiction. As we are an agrifiance business, this book was very interesting. You hear many stories about rural America, but this books break it into 3 categories: militarization, industrialization, suburbanization. The author took us through how rural America has been shaped by these 3 things over time. Was a very interesting read, not sure I could recommend as it’s SLOW read. Nevertheless if you are interested in rural America, check this out.
July 22, 2024
This book is a history-bomb and there’s not really any other way to put it. Conn is a very meticulous writer and ties all of his sources together very well in each section. Some sections (the military stuff, at least for me) read slower than others, but everything felt important in the end. Overall, a very relevant context builder in a time when seemingly everyone has something to say about the topic.
December 28, 2024
There's a lot of important, insightful analysis here. The style can be a little dry at times, but the author's David Graeber-esque contrarian witticisms make up for it. I also like how he relies heavily on the lives of everyday people and sources like obituaries and newspaper articles to evidence his points. I don't think any other history book I've read so far has resulted in as many additions to my Goodreads "Want to read" list as this one has.
January 1, 2025
Some good information in here and I thought the conclusion was excellent and insightful, but it certainly dragged in parts. A good survey of the development of rural, exurban and suburban spaces in the US - was more of a historical/geographical text than a political one, but does begin to answer the question of why so many non-urban Americans act against their interests with such consistency, and the various ways corporate interests have exploited those spaces and resources.
April 24, 2024
Reading this book is like seeing into the fucking matrix of the American mythos.
Massively changed my oppinion on what my ideal life would look like. I have taken the citypill fully.
Would recommend to anyone who thinks that living in a small shack/commune/farm/thing in the middle of nowhere is preferable to a city.
Massively changed my oppinion on what my ideal life would look like. I have taken the citypill fully.
Would recommend to anyone who thinks that living in a small shack/commune/farm/thing in the middle of nowhere is preferable to a city.
April 2, 2024
One of the most thought provoking books I have read in a long time. Rural America is not what many of us think it is nor has it for many years. It’s time we recognize that fact and the reasons for it.
May 14, 2025
Longing for Arcadia
Excellent book on the concise analysis and deconstruction of myth of rural Arcadia that underpins the disenchantment and longing leading to the election of a corrupt felon president who wants make America great again at the expense of diversity and equality .
Excellent book on the concise analysis and deconstruction of myth of rural Arcadia that underpins the disenchantment and longing leading to the election of a corrupt felon president who wants make America great again at the expense of diversity and equality .
Read
July 2, 2025Argues against the view of urban—>suburban, for rural—>post-urban to describe the current American landscape, via military industrialization, industry decentralization, and cooperation/syndicate targeting (eg dollar general).
March 19, 2024
Cannot recommend this book enough
May 26, 2024
Very interesting.
July 6, 2024
Quite a deep history of non urban America in the 20th century. The writing seems to get caught up in history a wee bit too much which distracts from the author’s premise.
Want to read
July 8, 2024306.0973 Con
December 28, 2024
We all have heard how small towns are the last bastion of local, family-owned mom & pop shops-- but most big box retailers including Dollar General and Wal-Mart began and became the behemoths they are primarily via rural communities. Why is that? They're fiercely independent and against federal government overreach-- but are intertwined and shaped both economically and culturally to the parasitism of the American military complex. How did that happen? An overwhelming number of jobs held by those in rural areas aren't even in the country; they're held in the city that they commute to. So where does this leave the rural economic identity? And was there ever one to begin with? At least, any rural identity that most of us would recognize?
This book is all about tracing, pinpointing, and dissecting our collective understanding of the pastoral rural America, and whether or not any of it ever held any truth. It's one of the most interesting books I've read this year, especially as someone who grew up in a rural area and has found myself increasingly fascinated with the sort of doublethink required to hold a lot of the most incongruous or directly contradictory aspects of the American rural cultural identity.
This book is all about tracing, pinpointing, and dissecting our collective understanding of the pastoral rural America, and whether or not any of it ever held any truth. It's one of the most interesting books I've read this year, especially as someone who grew up in a rural area and has found myself increasingly fascinated with the sort of doublethink required to hold a lot of the most incongruous or directly contradictory aspects of the American rural cultural identity.
July 2, 2024
Definitely dry but good
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