Say "New England" and you likely conjure up an image in the mind of your listener: the snowy woods or stone wall of a Robert Frost poem, perhaps, or that quintessential icon of the region--the idyllic white village. Such images remind us that, as Joseph Conforti notes, a region is not just a territory on the ground. It is also a place in the imagination. This ambitious work investigates New England as a cultural invention, tracing the region's changing identity across more than three centuries. Incorporating insights from history, literature, art, material culture, and geography, it shows how succeeding generations of New Englanders created and broadcast a powerful collective identity for their region through narratives about its past. Whether these stories were told in the writings of Frost or Harriet Beecher Stowe, enacted in historical pageants or at colonial revival museums, or conveyed in the pages of a geography textbook or Yankee magazine, New Englanders used them to sustain their identity, revising them as needed to respond to the shifting regional landscape.

The New England states are a pretty close-knit groupin fact, you could conceivably hop in the car and eat your way through all six states in a single day. Fortunately there's The New England Tablean easier way to enjoy the bounty of the northeast. Celebrated author of The Cape Cod Table and Boston area resident Lora Brody has combed Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut to share the wonderful dishes this rugged region is especially proud offrom traditional favorites such as Boston Baked Beans to enticing modern classics such as Red Flannel Salmon Hash or Pear and Candied Ginger Clafouti. With its evocative photographs of New England's people and places, and irresistible recipes, The New England Table will have everyone pining for a peaceful breakfast repast at Rangeley Lake, a musical picnic at Tanglewood, or an al fresco dinner in Litchfield County.