"Scholars and general readers alike will profit from distinguished Indiana historian James Madison's excellent account of the 1920s Klan and its troubled legacy in the Hoosier state. Grounded in thorough research and expressed in direct, vivid prose, The Ku Klux Klan in the Heartland documents the Invisible Empire's impact on Indiana institutions and culture from state politics to small town life. Unsparing in his exposure of Klan bigotry, Madison also attempts to understand ordinary Klan members who believed themselves to be good citizens and kind-hearted neighbors. That paradox has informed changing perceptions of American identity and privilege over the past century."—Thomas R. Pegram, Loyola University Maryland, author of One Hundred Percent America: The Rebirth and Decline of the Klu Klux Klan in the 1920s.
"In examining the motivations and methods of the Ku Klux Klan, Madison's lively, accessible and all-too-timely account, explores how previous generations have grappled with the age-old question "who is an American?"; a question that continues to define and divide the nation today. Whether addressing politics, media, religion or basketball, this meticulously researched and expansive work brilliantly illustrates how, through the Klan, we can better understand American history today."—Tom Rice, University of St Andrews, author of White Robes, Silver Screens: Movies and the Making of the Ku Klux Klan
"Our democracy demands that we open all the pages in the book of history," James Madison writes in this important study of the Klan in Indiana. In his reading of these pages, Madison counters many of the common myths surrounding the origin, power, and appeal of the Klan to Midwesterners in the 1920s. Madison's focus is on the robed men and women, neither naïve nor particularly duped by a charismatic leader, who belonged to the organization, and on the political turmoil surrounding prohibition, suffrage, economics, and religion that caused them to join. The Ku Klux Klan in the Heartland sheds much-needed light on the un-read pages of our past that continue to reverberate into our present."—Susan Neville, Butler University, author of Indiana Winter
"James Madison, author of the classic A Lynching in the Heartland, gives a sweeping portrayal of the ugly role of The Ku Klux Klan in the Heartland and its blot on American history. He portrays its rise to power in Indiana in the 1920s, and its current iterations in "graffiti of Nazi flags painted outside a Hamilton county synagogue in 2018" and in "Klan recruiting notices that appeared across town" in Bloomington in 2019. This book burns."—Dan Wakefield, author of New York in the Fifties, and Going All The Way.
"By now, 100 years later, the story of the spell cast by the evil D.C. Stephenson over the good people of Indiana is familiar to anyone who knows the state's story. But that's not the whole story, says historian James H. Madison in his revelatory new book, The Ku Klux Klan in the Heartland. The whole story is even more uncomfortable."—Nuvo
"Hard to take in, but easy to read due to his writing style, The Ku Klux Klan in the Heartland, is a do-read. Madison's account of the Ku Klux Klan combines primary sourece material and original research with his clean, vivid and well researched writing. While lots of nonfiction by academics is, well, academic, Madison is monstrously absorbale."—The Herald Times
"In this tightly packed and well-written volume focused mostly on the second Klan, Madision provides a fast-paced analysis of how the Invisible Empire spread across the Hoosier State in the 1920s, becoming a symbol of good, solid Americanism for its many adherents and a symbol of fear and hatred for its myria of victims....The book deserves a wide readership."—Brent M.S. Campney, ANNALS OF IOWA
"In The Ku Klux Klan in the Heartland, James H. Madison, attempts, with great success, to peek underneath those white hoods to bring focus the people who were part of the Klan, why they joined, how they viewed themselves, and how the Klan, seemingly once dead, has hung on to continue to preach its reprehensible creed."—Ray Boomhower, Indiana Authors Awards
