?This is a brilliantly conceived, extremely thorough, and eminently satisfying piece of historical scholarship that successfully blends distinctive approaches--economic growth and the role of ideas--into the history of middle western cities. ... Particularly valuable is his closing chapter, which sorts out and analyzes the many strains of thought that made up the booster intellectual tradition, his examination of its relationship to the growth of the statistical method in the study of society is especially original.?-Wisconsin Magazine of History