What is it about Minnesota? It is the land of Ventura and of Keillor, a state with both America's most visited wilderness area and the nation's largest shopping mall, and a state with a population equally divided between the metropolitan and the rural. Considering these apparent dichotomies, why has the state emerged as a cultural symbol of a distinct and perhaps lost America? Does this symbol even reflect reality? Thirteen perceptive essays by keen observers explore the past, present, and possible future of a place that is full of contradictions yet unified in its exceptionalism.

What is it about Minnesota? It is the land of Ventura and of Keillor, a state with both America's most visited wilderness area and the nation's larges...