{"product_id":"prairie-republic-the-political-culture-of-dakota-territory-1879-1889-9780806141107","title":"Prairie Republic: The Political Culture of Dakota Territory, 1879-1889","description":"American democratic ideals, civic republicanism, public morality, and Christianity were the dominant forces at work during South Dakota's formative decade. \u003cp\u003eWhat?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn our cynical age, such a claim seems either remarkably na ve or hopelessly outdated. Territorial politics in the late-nineteenth-century West is typically viewed as a closed-door game of unprincipled opportunism or is caricatured, as in the classic film \u003ci\u003eThe Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, \u003c\/i\u003e as a drunken exercise in bombast and rascality.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNow Jon K. Lauck examines anew the values we like to think were at work during the founding of our western states. Taking Dakota Territory as a laboratory for examining a formative stage of western politics, Lauck finds that settlers from New England and the Midwest brought democratic practices and republican values to the northern plains and invoked them as guiding principles in the drive for South Dakota statehood.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003ePrairie Republic\u003c\/i\u003e corrects an overemphasis on class conflict and economic determinism, factors posited decades ago by such historians as Howard R. Lamar. Instead, Lauck finds South Dakota's political founders to be agents of Protestant Christianity and of civic republicanism--an age-old ideology that entrusted the polity to independent, landowning citizens who placed the common interest above private interest. Focusing on the political culture widely shared among settlers attracted to the Great Dakota Boom of the 1880s, Lauck shows how they embraced civic virtue, broad political participation, and agrarian ideals. Family was central in their lives, as were common-school education, work, and Christian community.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn rescuing the story of Dakota's settlers from historical obscurity, \u003ci\u003ePrairie Republic\u003c\/i\u003e dissents from the recent darker portrayal of western history and expands our view and understanding of the American democratic tradition.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eLauck, Jon:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eJon K. Lauck \u003c\/b\u003eis the past president of the Midwestern History Association, teaches history and political science at the University of South Dakota, and is Editor-in-Chief of \u003ci\u003eMiddle West Review\u003c\/i\u003e. He has authored or edited several books, including \u003ci\u003eThe Lost Region: Toward a Revival of Midwestern History;\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eDaschle vs. Thune\u003c\/i\u003e; \u003ci\u003eFinding a New Midwestern History\u003c\/i\u003e; and three volumes of \u003ci\u003eThe Plains Political Tradition\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"University of Oklahoma Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50413120356626,"sku":"9780806141107","price":36.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_7e7fbb60-52b8-45d7-a5f3-9d9d52feeb46.jpg?v=1729347785","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/prairie-republic-the-political-culture-of-dakota-territory-1879-1889-9780806141107","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}