Back to Middletown takes a fresh look at Robert and Helen Merrell Lynd's two inter-war studies of Muncie, Indiana and the enormous secondary literature which they spawned. It differs from the numerous other investigations by examining the complete Middletown saga through the distinctive lens of an outsider, that of an Italian sociologist, tracing the character and evolution of 'middle America' from the Lynds' time to the present. The author's discovery of previously unknown data, documents and correspondence sheds new light on the formation and elaboration of the Lynds' project. She addresses major issues of sociology and social anthropology and takes up questions that reflect the contemporary contradictions and dissonances in the American social fabric. This book shows that the continuing narrative of Middletown encapsulates the pain of social and economic alienation, political war, religious messianism, and personal demoralization.

Review

"The Lynds' works became sociological classics . . . and gave rise to a subgenre of sociology called Munciology. In this volume, Caccamo reanalyzes the Lynds' findings and reports on her extended visit to Muncie in the late 1980s. She is an objective observer truly distanced from the cultural and religious biases that tainted the initial works. This almost anthropological study of Muncie is an excellent companion to the Lynds' works and serves as a great cultural study of small-town America in the late twentieth century."--Library Journal

"Caccamo birngs to 'the Muncian tribe and its sociological investigators' the fresh perspective of a cosmopolitan European. . . . A graceful, humane, and provocative work, Back to Middletown is a model of scholarship that is also art."--Choice

-The Lynds' works became sociological classics . . . and gave rise to a subgenre of sociology called Munciology. In this volume, Caccamo reanalyzes the Lynds' findings and reports on her extended visit to Muncie in the late 1980s. She is an objective observer truly distanced from the cultural and religious biases that tainted the initial works. This almost anthropological study of Muncie is an excellent companion to the Lynds' works and serves as a great cultural study of small-town America in the late twentieth century.---Library Journal

-Caccamo birngs to 'the Muncian tribe and its sociological investigators' the fresh perspective of a cosmopolitan European. . . . A graceful, humane, and provocative work, Back to Middletown is a model of scholarship that is also art.---Choice

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