Tom Frank's "What's the Matter with Kansas?"

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Saturday August 07, 2004 · 11:36 PM PDT

2004/08/07 · 23:36

Thomas Frank, "What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America," Metropolitan Books, 2004. Frank is the editor of "The Baffler." He lives in Chicago, but was born and raised in an upper middle class suburb in Kansas. He uses Kansas as a lens to examine the phenomena of people voting to strip away economic and social protections that their grandparents fought and sometimes shed blood for. The title itself is insider irony: it refers to a famous anti-Populist editorial of 1896.

Frank gives a bit too much ink (I think) to Brooks, Coulter, and O'Reilly, but otherwise the book is well-researched, thoughtful and engaging. Some really interesting background on historical politics in Kansas. Read More

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