Look down as you buzz across America, and Oklahoma looks like another "flyover state." A closer inspection, however, reveals one of the most tragic, fascinating, and unpredictable places in the United States. Over the span of a century, Oklahoma gave birth to movements for an African American homeland, a vibrant Socialist Party, armed rebellions of radical farmers, and an insurrection by a man called Crazy Snake. In the same era, the state saw numerous oil booms, one of which transformed the small town of Tulsa into the "oil capital of the world." Add to the chaos one of the nation's worst episodes of racial violence, a statewide takeover by the Ku Klux Klan, and the rise of a paranoid far-right agenda by a fundamentalist preacher named Billy James Hargis and you have the recipe for America's most paradoxical state. Far from being a placid place in the heart of Flyover Country, Oklahoma has been a laboratory for all kinds of social, political, and artistic movements, producing a singular list of weirdos, geniuses, and villains.
In The Great Oklahoma Swindle Russell Cobb tells the story of a state rich in natural resources and artistic talent, yet near the bottom in education and social welfare. Raised in Tulsa, Cobb engages Oklahomans across the boundaries of race and class to hear their troubles, anxieties, and aspirations and delves deep to understand their contradictory and often stridently independent attitudes. Interweaving memoir, social commentary, and sometimes surprising research around the themes of race, religion, and politics, Cobb presents an insightful portrait that will make you rethink everything you thought you knew about the American Heartland.
Look down as you buzz across America, and Oklahoma looks like another "flyover state." A closer inspection, however, reveals one of the most tragic, fascinating, and unpredictable places in the United States. Over the span of a century, Oklahoma gave birth to movements for an African American homeland, a vibrant Socialist Party, armed rebellions of radical farmers, and an insurrection by a man called Crazy Snake. In the same era, the state saw numerous oil booms, one of which transformed the small town of Tulsa into the "oil capital of the world." Add to the chaos one of the nation's worst episodes of racial violence, a statewide takeover by the Ku Klux Klan, and the rise of a paranoid far-right agenda by a fundamentalist preacher named Billy James Hargis and you have the recipe for America's most paradoxical state. Far from being a placid place in the heart of Flyover Country, Oklahoma has been a laboratory for all kinds of social, political, and artistic movements, producing a singular list of weirdos, geniuses, and villains.
In The Great Oklahoma Swindle Russell Cobb tells the story of a state rich in natural resources and artistic talent, yet near the bottom in education and social welfare. Raised in Tulsa, Cobb engages Oklahomans across the boundaries of race and class to hear their troubles, anxieties, and aspirations and delves deep to understand their contradictory and often stridently independent attitudes. Interweaving memoir, social commentary, and sometimes surprising research around the themes of race, religion, and politics, Cobb presents an insightful portrait that will make you rethink everything you thought you knew about the American Heartland.
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Prologue
1. Voyage to Dementiatown
2. You’re Not Doing Fine, Oklahoma
3. The Road to Hell in Indian Territory
4. Where the Hell Is Oklahoma Anyway?
5. The Long Goodbye to Oklahoma’s Small-Town Jews
6. Okies in the Promised Land
7. Among the Tribe of the Wannabes
8. Backward, Christian Soldier
9. Keeping Oklahoma Weird
10. Cursed?
11. The Fire That Time
12. Uncommon Commons
Epilogue
Notes
Index
Russell Cobb is an associate professor in Latin American
studies and creative writing at the University of Alberta. His
nonfiction writing has won many national and regional awards. He is
the editor of The Paradox of Authenticity in a Globalized World and
the reporter of the This American Life story that served as the
basis for the Netflix film Come Sunday. His journalism has
appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, Slate, and the
Nation, and on NPR.
“The Great Oklahoma Swindle is that rarest thing: a treasure well
gotten. Cobb has all the gifts of a storyteller, a journalist, an
ethicist, and an anthropologist. The substance of the book is
modern tragedy, but the sense of the book is the joy of heartfelt
inquiry and analysis.”—Rivka Galchen, author of Little Labors
“Russell Cobb has done for his hometown of Tulsa and state of
Oklahoma what James Joyce did for his Dublin and Ireland in
Ulysses, populated with unforgettable characters. Cobb accomplishes
this through storytelling, every page glowing with truth and
compassion.”—Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of Red Dirt: Growing Up
Okie
"This unflinching look at Oklahoma’s singular past helpfully fills
in lesser-known aspects of the historical record."—Publishers
Weekly
"The Great Oklahoma Swindle shows that Oklahoma's story is
all-American in a compressed timeline. That Cobb stands toe to toe
with his state and never blinks makes this project a compelling
read."—Matt Sutherland, Foreword Reviews
"The Great Oklahoma Swindle is a selective window to the historical
and cultural geographies of the wider American South and southern
Plains. . . . For the geographer and layperson alike, it is an
outstanding, timely, and accessible primer for better understanding
how much the U.S. is shaped by the converging legacies of
neoliberal governance, settler colonialism, and systemic racism.
Loving a place is not always easy, but Russell Cobb’s The Great
Oklahoma Swindle sets an exemplary and thought-provoking model for
other writers to follow in the twenty-first century American
scene."—Robert Briwa, Journal of Geography
"The Great Oklahoma Swindle unwraps the state's racism,
stereotypes, and fraud to add to the moderate amount of Oklahoma
historical literature in a much-needed progressive review and
liberal discussion of Oklahoma in the twentieth and twenty-first
centuries."—Lydia A. Perez, Chronicles of Oklahoma
"A native of Oklahoma, Russell Cobb's research reveals his love of
the state with a critical analysis."—Vernon Schmid, Roundup
Magazine
The Great Oklahoma Swindle should be required reading for every
citizen of the state, especially schoolchildren. As a human
geographer and writer of history, I am truly impressed by how Cobb
has unwrapped the exaggerations, stereotypes, and hidden history of
Oklahoma to present a refreshingly accurate account of this
puzzling place that I love, warts and all.”—Michael Wallis,
best-selling author of The Best Land under Heaven: The Donner Party
in the Age of Manifest Destiny
“A swindle is a fraudulent scheme or action taken by those with the
intention of using deception to deprive someone of money or
possessions, sometimes just dignity. Russell Cobb has penned one of
the most direct, frank, rough, rustic, reasoned, and realistic
approaches to a deep dark side of what was intended to be deep dark
secrets at the core of Oklahoma’s red soil, red soul, and redneck
essence with regard to its grit, greed, grandeur, and contrived
gravitas, based in faith, farce, and fraud. I found it profoundly
and profanely revealing and educational. It should be required
reading for every serious student of history or those who love the
truth regardless of how painful or pitiful the honest truth can
be.”—Rev. Carlton Pearson, progressive spiritual teacher and author
of The Gospel of Inclusion, the subject of the Netflix film Come
Sunday
|
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
