{"product_id":"becoming-utopia-margaret-e-farrar-9781496247216","title":"Becoming Utopia: History, Heritage, and Sustainability in the American Midwest","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eBecoming Utopia\u003c\/i\u003e centers on the tiny community of Bishop Hill, Illinois, whose marketing materials call it \"Utopia on the Prairie,\" home to a radical communal religious sect that emigrated from Sweden in the 1840s. Through rich textual and ethnographic analyses, Margaret E. Farrar and Adam Kaul tell the story of what happens when a small, historically significant Midwestern community negotiates the contradictory impulses of twenty-first-century place-making. At first glance, Bishop Hill is simply a small heritage tourism destination in Midwestern flyover country, but further inspection reveals it to be a complex place that mixes a deep nostalgia for the past undercut by complex origin stories of displacement and colonialism, an active historic preservation movement amid futuristic green energy technologies built by multinational corporations, and a commitment to localism in the context of omnipresent globalization.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBased on fifteen years of fieldwork, \u003ci\u003eBecoming Utopia\u003c\/i\u003e is an interdisciplinary contribution to conversations about the importance and meaning of place-making, heritage-making, and sustainability (social, economic, and environmental) in the twenty-first century.\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Margaret E. Farrar,Adam Kaul\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1496247213\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781496247216\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Nebraska Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 07\/01\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 256\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.76lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.58d","brand":"Margaret E. Farrar","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":48659650740479,"sku":"9781496247216","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/becoming-utopia-margaret-e-farrar-9781496247216","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}