Prairie Town is a first-rate and indispensable contribution to the 'New Literacy Studies.' The book elegantly demonstrates how the new global economy seeks to rewrite communities and how those communities, in turn, struggle to understand, contest, and sometimes transform such changes through word, print, and deed. -- James Gee, University of Wisconsin-Madison How can a critical educational project-historically focused on the urban, the cosmopolitan and the multicultural-engage with the new rural white diaspora? Jacqueline Edmondson begins and ends where the best analyses of globalisation and education should: with a personal but explicitly political analysis of local community lives and struggles. Her reading of rural life is a poetic and hopeful educational narrative. Read this after you've finished 'Fast Food Nation' -- Allan Luke, The University of Queensland An interesting perspective on rural community development. Rural sociologists will find much to contemplate and appreciate in this articulate, impassioned description of rural malaise and the possibilities for community renewal. Recommended. CHOICE Timely and engaging, Prairie Town: Redefining Rural Life in the Age of Globalization illuminates a segment of American society that is often ignored. Harvard Educational Review Jackie Edmondson has written one of the most important, if not the best, books ever written on rural education. Every page is filled with critical insight and passion. Edmondson brings a much-needed critical eye as to both identifying the problems facing public education and how they might be constructively addressed. This is a brilliant and wise book. Read and cheer for a voice that still believes that teaching and learning are not only about acquiring civic knowledge and concrete skills, but also about addressing matters of justice, compassion, and democracy. -- Henry A. Giroux, author of Public Spaces, Private Lives: Democracy Beyond 9/11
