Gjerde's premise is interesting--there were two groups of immigrants to the upper mid west in the mid to late 1800's. One was "Yankee" from New England and the other foreign, particularly Germans, Swedes, Norwiegens and some Irish. The latter formed isolated, insular communities and tried to reconsturct communities based on a shared religous, cultural and linguistic commonality. This was looked on with alarm by many Americans, who worried that these folks would not assimilate and were dangerous to traditional American republicanism. Unfortunatley, Gjerde sounds much more like a sociologist than a historian, esp. when he comes to describe the "tension filled" families of those from Europe who (to Gjerde) were too hard on their spouses, made their children work without paying them for it (horrors!) and perhaps had loveless, unemotional relationships with their spouses (though Gjerde provides no credible evidence for this last concoction.) He also has a Berkeley professor's view of the farm----he continually describes the work as onerous, arduous, brutal, drudgery, etc. He never considers the joy and satisfaction from working the land, even if it is at times hard. I suspect the nearest Gjerde has been to a farm is the produce section at his food coop.
Although there are some merits to the book, Gjerde's poor use of evidence (relies on novels as factual evidence instead of, well, facts!), his overuse of academic jargon, ridiculous depiction of children and the family, and omiting a discussion of populism make this book one to avoid.