UMass Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press

Blake Gumprecht

A vivid portrait of a distinctly American phenomenon

Winner of the 2009 J. B. Jackson Prize of the Association of American Geographers

The college town is a unique type of urban place, shaped by the sometimes conflicting forces of youth, intellect, and idealism. The hundreds of college towns in the United States are, in essence, an academic archipelago. Similar to one another, they differ in fundamental ways from other cities and the regions in which they are located.

In this highly readable book—the first work published on the subject—Blake Gumprecht identifies the distinguishing features of college towns, explains why they have developed as they have in the United States, and examines in depth various characteristics that make them unusual. In eight thematic chapters, he explores some of the most interesting aspects of college towns—their distinctive residential and commercial districts, their unconventional political cultures, their status as bohemian islands, their emergence as high-tech centers, and more. Each of these chapters focuses on a single college town as an example, while providing additional evidence from other towns.

Lively, richly detailed, and profusely illustrated with original maps and photographs, as well as historical images, this is an important book that firmly establishes the college town as an integral component of the American experience.

"There are red states and blue states, and then there are college towns—a universe of their own, anomalous political creatures. This brilliantly worked-out idea by a University of New Hampshire geographer is that rarest of things—the first full-length study of its subject—and sure to please and academic on your list."

Philadelphia Inquirer

"How amazing that this very first full-length treatment of the American college town should be so thoroughly satisfying! Blake Gumprecht has given us all we could possibly ask for: a keenly observed, richly documented, many-sided account of a critically significant part of the American scene, one too long ignored by its scholarly residents. A truly brilliant achievement."

Wilbur Zelinsky, author of The Cultural Geography of the United States

“College towns are a critical piece of America’s changing geography. Blake Gumprecht provides a vivid insider’s account of their growing importance to our economy and society. I can’t imagine a better book on this subject.”

Richard Florida, author Who’s Your City?: How the Creative Economy Is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life

“The American College Town demonstrates Gumprecht’s knack for recognizing a great untold story. It also proves that it is actually possible to articulate that most elusive of geographical concepts, the sense of place, when the writer is a master of landscape observation, as Gumprecht unquestionably is. This book teaches readers how to see the meaning embedded in places we take for granted. Gumprecht’s exhaustive, multi-dimensional research enables him to read landscapes better than any historical geographer writing today.”

Anne Kelly Knowles, author of Calvinists Incorporated: Welsh Immigrants on Ohio’s Industrial Frontier

“With a keen eye for telling details and examples and an easy writing style, both products of an earlier career as a journalist, Blake Gumprecht identifies, explains, and vividly conveys the characteristics that make American college towns distinctive places.”

David Wishart, author of An Unspeakable Sadness:
The Dispossession of the Nebraska Indians

“The American College Town is expansive, comprehensive, and coherent. It builds on a remarkable and detailed mix of field and archival work, and it offers an original and highly personal interpretation. Gumprecht has emerged fully as an important scholar of the American cultural landscape.”

Joseph S. Wood, author of The New England Village

“This book is well written, well documented, and thoroughly engaging.
Gumprecht adeptly partners individual college towns with different themes relevant to all college towns. As someone who appreciates case studies and well-crafted vignettes, I find this work both fascinating and profoundly effective.”

Corey Dolgon, author of The End of the Hamptons:
Scenes from the Class Struggle in America’s Paradise

Blake Gumprecht is associate professor and chair of the Department of Geography at the University of New Hampshire. His previous book, The Los Angeles River: Its Life, Death, and Possible Rebirth, won the J. B. Jackson Prize from the Association of American Geographers.

American Studies / Geography / Sociology
448 pp., 82 illus., 12 maps, 7'' x 10'' format
$34.95 cloth, ISBN 978-1-55849-671-2
November 2008

Please click HERE to visit Blake Gumprecht's website.

Please click HERE to view the recent article about The American College Town in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Publication of this book has been assisted by a generous grant from Futhermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund.

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