Originally part of the Pottawatomie Nation, the northern Indiana area of La Porte, which is French for "The Door," was named for the access it provided settlers who passed westward into the Calumet River valley. Now known as "The Maple City" for its many beautiful and colorful trees, La Porte boasts a rich and varied history. From its beginnings in 1833 when the city's founding fathers donated the land for the public square, through the 1930s and beyond, La Porte has been central to the area's business, agricultural, religious, and architectural development. The diverse and rich history of the La Porte area is captured in this remarkable collection of over 200 vintage photographs. La Porte, Indiana and Its Environs depicts the history of the area from the Pioneer Period through the 1930s. It chronicles the changes and challenges faced as the log cabins of the Pioneer Days became the elaborate homes of the early 20th century, as businesses evolved to meet the changes of industrialization, and as one-room school houses were replaced to meet the needs of the growing community.

Hoosiers witness their share of human darkness. Stoner delves into this dark side with a look at the most heinous murders that have taken place in each of Indiana's 92 counties.

"A brilliant account of the politics of shit. It will leave you speechless." Written in Paris after the heady days of student revolt in May 1968 and before the devastation of the AIDS epidemic, History of Shit is emblematic of a wild and adventurous strain of 1970s' theoretical writing that attempted to marry theory, politics, sexuality, pleasure, experimentation, and humor. Radically redefining dialectical thought and post-Marxist politics, it takes an important—and irreverent—position alongside the works of such postmodern thinkers as Foucault, Deleuze, Guattari, and Lyotard. Laporte's eccentric style and ironic sensibility combine in an inquiry that is provocative, humorous, and intellectually exhilarating. Debunking all humanist mythology about the grandeur of civilization, History of Shit suggests instead that the management of human waste is crucial to our identities as modern individuals—including the organization of the city, the rise of the nation-state, the development of capitalism, and the mandate for clean and proper language. Far from rising above the muck, Laporte argues, we are thoroughly mired in it, particularly when we appear our most clean and hygienic. Laporte's style of writing is itself an attack on our desire for "clean language." Littered with lengthy quotations and obscure allusions, and adamantly refusing to follow a linear argument, History of Shit breaks the rules and challenges the conventions of "proper" academic discourse.