Debt and Dispossession

"Through interviews with residents of an agricultural county in western Minnesota, Dudley chronicles the experience of financial failure in a culture that extols the virtues of independent business management, competitive production, and middle-class self-sufficiency.". "Media images of the farm crisis fostered the impression that a majority of farmers banded together to protest the forced sales of neighboring farms. Dudley counters this misleading view with her perceptive analysis of the local "culture of suspicion" that rejects political activism, discourages solidarity among neighbors, and regards deeply indebted farmers as bad managers who deserve to lose their farms."--BOOK JACKET.