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Tom Isern is North Dakota’s answer to Garrison Keillor. However, unlike Keillor, whom Isern rejects as lacking sincerity, Isern is deadly serious about preserving and analyzing the cultural heritage of the Dakotas and the Great Plains as a whole. His aim is not to amuse his audience with self-deprecating nostalgia, but rather to utilize the unique traditions and social characteristics of the region in order to build for its future. To Isern, a professor of history, the key to economic growth in the plains states lies in an appreciation for its past, a renewed commitment to the ancient traditions and innovative adaptations of the diverse immigrants who settled this rugged land.

This is not to say that Dakota Circle is without humor. His play on Jeff Foxworthy’s redneck routine, “You Might be a North Dakotan if….,” is both hilarious and revealing. The entire book is a catalogue of oddities, eccentricities, recipes (the author has a particular affection for traditional foods), and philosophical wisdom--of both folk and academic varieties. He notes, for instance, that as women have liberated themselves from the drudgeries of domesticity, they have also forfeited their role as carriers of cultural tradition. Rather than bemoaning the downside of feminism, however, Isern instead takes it upon himself to fill the void by cooking, gardening, and storytelling. He is careful to note that partaking of such non-traditional activities have not emasculated him in the least, that he still savors hunting, driving a pickup, and smoking an occasional cigar. The underlying message seems to be that cultural conservatism and social change are not necessarily at odds, that we can best move forward as a region and a society by building on the past, rather than by rejecting or abandoning it.