heartland

In the new book ‘Won’t Back Down: Heartland Rock and the Fight for America,’ music journalist Erin Osmon takes a closer look at the genre often seen as quintessentially American. Popularized by artists like Bruce Springsteen and Ton Petty, Heartland Rock has long told stories of labor, longing, and life on the margins. But Osmon argues that beneath those familiar themes lies a more complicated history one in which these songs had been used to express both solidarity and division.

Jonathan M. Metzl is the Frederick B. Rentschler II professor of sociology and psychiatry at Vanderbilt University and director of its Center for…