Culled from the best of Minnesota History magazine, these essays on 200 years of Minnesota history encompass a wide range of its past, from frontier life to the age of technological innovation, from Dakota and Ojibwe history to the story of a Chinese family in St. Paul, from lumber workers' and truckers' strikes to the women's suffrage movement.

A set of mutually beneficial relationships between southern slaveholders and Minnesotans kept the men and women whose labor generated the wealth enslaved.

For the first time in decades, here is an in-depth look at Minnesota government and politics, providing a useful overview of the history, structure, and distinctive characteristics of the political system in the North Star State. Minnesota?s government is often held up as a role model for other states. Drawing on survey research, electoral analysis, interview data, and political experience, the authors examine contemporary politics in Minnesota, emphasizing in particular its long-standing moralistic dimension. Attention is given to the major components of the state?s political system: the constitution, legislature, courts, relationship to both the federal system and local governments, lobbying, elections, campaign finance, and public attitudes toward taxes and services. Equally important, the authors assess various enduring myths and views about Minnesota politics, including its legendary liberalism and citizen involvement in the political scene, and even consider how its new governor, former wrestler Jesse Ventura, fits into Minnesota?s traditions.

A chronological compendium of remarkable and curious events in the history of the North Star State

North Star Country is the story of the remarkable transformation of Upstate New York's famous 'Burned-over District;' where the flames of religious revival sparked an abolitionist movement that eventually burst into the conflagration of the Civil War. Milton C. Sernett details the regional presence of African Americans from the pre-Revolutionary War era through the Civil War, both as champions of liberty and as beneficiaries of a humanitarian spirit generated from evangelical impulses. He includes in his narrative the struggles of great abolitionists—among them Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Gerrit Smith, Beriah Green, Jermain Loguen, and Samuel May—and of many lesser-known characters who rescued fugitives from slave hunters, maintained safe houses along the Underground Railroad, and otherwise furthered the cause of freedom both regionally and in the nation as a whole. Sernett concludes with a compelling examination of the moral choices made during the Civil War by upstate New Yorkers—both black and white—and of the post-Appomattox campaign to secure freedom for the newly emancipated.

A grand tour of the North Star State's geographical, political, and human history, including travelers' guides to historic destinations.

An entertaining collection of 101 quintessential places people events customs lingo and eats that help define the personality of the North Star State

Includes - Arrowhead's Devil Dogs - Spirits of the Vikings - Phantom racehorse Dan Patch - The legend of the fearsome Windego - The ghost ship Minnesota

Only in Minnesota is a pictorial tribute to all that makes the state unique. Combining the natural, historical, and cultural facets of life in Minnesota, it showcases the people and what they do for fun (the Uptown Art Fair, ice fishing), where they live (from the cities of Minneapolis, St. Paul, Duluth, and Rochester to smaller towns and rural regions in between), their favorite places (Mille Lacs, Split Rock Lighthouse), and more. More than 160 dazzling, four-color photographs, showing a variety of subjects--from farms and churches to tourist destinations and state parks; from nature scenes to city festivals and cultural events--are the focus of Only in Minnesota. These photographs are accented by lively captions and fun facts. The result is a homage to the Gopher state from a local author and photographer whose love for Minnesota comes through on every page. Roxanne Kjarum is a freelance photographer who shoots advertising for money and the natural world for love. Her first published work was in Sierra Club magazine in 1988; since then her photography has appeared in numerous publications, including MPLS.ST.PAUL Magazine, Lake Superior Magazine, and Metropolitan Home.

North Star Country explores country stores and county fairs, labor unions and dusty roads traveled by peddlers and truck drivers, and farms where families toil. Written in 1945 by acclaimed activist and writer Meridel Le Sueur, this unconventional history shines an uncommon light on the lives of ordinary people in the Upper Midwest. In the tradition of James Agee and John Dos Passos, Le Sueur creates a mosaic from the fabric of everyday life, including newspapers clippings, private letters, diaries, and lyrics from popular songs. Each quotation and brief vignette opens a window to an entire lifetime or a way of life. North Star Country highlights the struggles of American Indians and offers a fresh sensibility, untangling the history of the Upper Midwest, sorting it out and returning it to the common people, to common readers.