"Classic 1947 critique that is frank by today's standards and scandalous by 1947's"—Indianapolis Star"A lot of things started in Indiana—the automotive industry for one—and Indiana has produced a great many ideas, many wrongheaded and some downright wicked. Viewed one way, this book is a study of Indiana ideas, for threads run through it—the quest for the better life, bigotry, provincial protest. Viewed another, it is a study of an idea itself, the Hoosier, or Indiana, idea. By the 'Indiana idea' I mean the idea of Indiana and the Hoosiers that is held by people elsewhere. It is a conception of Indiana as a pleasant, rather rural place inhabited by people who are confident, prosperous, neighborly, easygoing, tolerant, shrewd."—from the Preface