"A unique, revelatory portrait of small-town America: the activities, changes, and events that shape this mostly unseen part of our national landscape, and the issues and concerns that matter to the ordinary Americans who make these towns their home. For the last five years, James and Deborah Fallows have been traveling across America in a single-prop airplane, visiting small cities and meeting civic leaders, factory workers, recent immigrants, and...

Clarkston, Georgia, was a typical southern town until it became a refugee resettlement center. Luma Mufleh, a young Jordanian woman educated in the United States and working as a coach for private youth soccer teams in Atlanta, was out for a drive one day and ended up in Clarkston. She was pleasantly surprised by the ethnic restaurants and by the sight of women wearing the hijab. Most of all, she was amazed and delighted to see young boys, black and...

Recruited by the U.S. Army and Navy from small towns and elite colleges, more than ten thousand women served as codebreakers during World War II. While their brothers and boyfriends took up arms, these women moved to Washington and learned the meticulous work of code-breaking. Their efforts shortened the war, saved countless lives, and gave them access to careers previously denied to them.

An ardent nature lover and author of Journey of the Pink Dolphins describes her unique friendship with a pig named Christopher Hogwood, a once sickly piglet who helped her develop a new relationship with neighbors in her small-town community that gave her an anchor to family and home. A naturalist who spent months at a time living on her own among wild creatures in remote jungles, author Montgomery was more comfortable with animals than with people....

"A funny and whip-smart memoir about a feisty young woman's quest for independence in an isolated Mennonite community. Carla Funk is a teenager with her hands on the church piano keys and her feet edging ever closer to the flames. Coming of age in a remote and forested valley--a place rich in Mennonites, loggers, and dutiful wives who submit to their husbands--she knows her destiny is to marry, have babies, and join the church ladies' sewing circle....

"A history of a quintessentially American place - the rural and small town heartland -- that uncovers deep yet hidden currents of connection with the world"--

A compilation of essays, based on a series of weekly columns, reflects on life in a small town in New England as it explores how America has changed over the past decade.

"The son of a Baptist pastor and deeply embedded in church life in small town Arkansas, as a young man Garrard Conley was terrified and conflicted about his sexuality. When Garrard was a nineteen-year-old college student, he was outed to his parents, and was forced to make a life-changing decision: either agree to attend a church-supported conversion therapy program that promised to "cure" him of homosexuality; or risk losing family, friends, and...

In the summer of 2012, Sister Simone Campbell and a group of fellow Roman Catholic nuns toured parts of the country to rally support against Congressman Paul Ryan's budget, a plan that cut vital social programs for the hurting poor and the struggling middle class. Prayer groups turned into rallies, and small town meetings became national media events. Sister Simone became a galvanizing force for progressives of all stripes and remains a driving force...