ÒA lot of things started in IndianaÑthe automotive industry for oneÑand 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 itÑthe guest for the better life, bigotry, provincial protest. Viewed another, it is a study of an idea itself, the Hoosier, or Indiana, idea. By the ÔIndiana ideaÕ 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.Ó ÑJohn Bartlow Martin, from the PrefaceIndiana: An Interpretation is arguably the best single book ever written about Indiana. First published in 1947, it has long been out of print. Although its view is that of the late forties, it is still as relevantÑand as accurateÑtoday as it was when first issued. Divided into seven sections, it begins with the State Fair as a window on the state as a whole, and then covers the pre-Civil War background, the Civil War and its impact on the state, the golden age of the 1880s to 1900s, Eugene V. Debs and the Hapgoods, the role of four influential and representative citizens, and the period during and just after World War II. An important book for anyone interested in Indiana or in the larger project of defining the heartland of America.