In 1993 Jonathan Raban entered the Badlands, a place the size of England and the least visited region in all of the United States. Here he came across the ruins of a community and isolated homesteads. These homes, he realized, gave clues as to the characters and lives of the thousands of landless people who, seduced by the advertising of the railroad companies in the early 20th century, took the train West in search of new lives and a permanent agricultural community. What had happened to turn these homesteaders' hopes of a new beginning into such despair? The land which betrayed them turned out to be an America in miniature. This is their story.
- ISBN10 0330346210
- ISBN13 9780330346214
- Publish Date 11 October 1996
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 8 April 2002
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Pan Macmillan
- Imprint Picador
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 336
- Language English