The title of Halvorson and Reno’s new book deftly encapsulates the central thesis of their work. They argue that past historical actors, scholars, filmmakers, poets, painters, journalists, and novelists created, constructed, and conceptualized the Midwest as an agrarian heartland that both relied upon and reified a bedrock of white supremacy, from the settler colonialism of the nineteenth century to the present day. In addition, Halvorson and Reno argue that the midwestern version of white supremacy, as embodied and reflected in tropes about the Midwest (ones that are often hiding in plain sight), have had national and global implications, as evident in the cultural influence of films like The Wizard of Oz and in the creation of modernization and developmental projects in the Global South.
At first glance, this thesis might appear jarring or surprising, especially for those who have long associated, dismissed, and/or romanticized the Midwest as a banal, average,...