Book Log 2008 #29: What's the Matter With Kansas? by Thomas Frank

I'd wanted to read this when it came out in 2004, but didn't get around to it and eventually forgot about it... until the next Presidential election came around and I saw it in an election-themed bookstore display.

Hard to say how I felt exactly about the book. I tend to think there's something to his general thesis, but I'd like to have seen how these folks have fared with recent downturns in the economy and support for the Iraq war. There were a couple placed where the book felt a bit padded, most notably a chapter about a Kansan who claims to be the Pope. By the time the chapter came up Frank had been pretty clear about the unusual ways Kansas and religion mix, and I don't the chapter added much.

I guess I found it interesting but vaguely off-putting, for reasons I can't particularly express a couple of months after reading it.