Indiana: An Interpretation, John Bartlow Martin

This is a reprint of a classic among history books.  It was originally published in 47 by Albert A. Knopf; this version was published by Indiana University Press in 1992.  While "out of date" in some ways (no malls, no McDonald's (R), no Toyota factories), in most fundamentals it remains one of the most rigorous and challenging books ever written about the Hoosier state.  Martin, though born in Ohio, grew up in Indianapolis, and after WWII he returned to write a book about his adoptive home state.  He had plenty to do without this book, writing for the Indianapolis Times, Hrper's, and numerous detective magazines, and was recognized as a writer who did not need a nine-to-five to survive.  Martin's approach was not the report of idyllic "frost is on the punkin" myth.  He wrote about periods and phases of development--the northern migration from the Cumberland Gap, homesteading, the Civil War, and industrialization.  Perhaps more interestingly and more challengingly, he wrote about some of the most diversely (some might say perversely) deviant Hoosiers, including Eugene V. Debs of union and Socialist fame, D. C. Stephenson, Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, and Court Asher, an isolationist who argued the US had no role to play in WWII.  As you might guess, the narrative tapestry woven of these threads is not always beautiful, but Martin made it truthful and meaningful to this day.  The book measures about five and one-half by eight and one-quarter inches with 300 pages plus index.  The book in excellent, like-new condition.