Jeanne Marie Laskas’s Hidden America: From Coal Miners to Cowboys, an Extraordinary Exploration of the Unseen People Who Make This Country Work was published in 2012 to rave reviews and was chosen by Oprah Winfrey as a “Must-Read Best Books.” Laskas is an English professor at the University of Pittsburgh and has written a wide variety of best-selling nonfiction texts. In Hidden America, Laskas explores the way ordinary Americans live by getting to know her subjects and telling their stories with both creativity and compassion.

Hidden America explores nine different occupations: mining, migrant farm work, professional cheerleading, air traffic control, gun sales, cattle ranching, oil drilling, long-distance truck driving, and landfill management. Most of the stories she tells are concerned with things that Americans rely on but are often unaware of or don’t pay attention to, despite their importance. There are two exceptions: the sections on professional cheerleading and gun sales. With these stories, Laskas is fascinated by something she might not quite understand, and she brings the reader along with her as she makes the attempt.

Each story focuses on one or two individuals, and Laskas presents their lives as objectively and respectfully as possible. Though most of the professions explored in the book have political implications, Laskas mostly keeps her own political views out of these stories and invites readers to do the same. Instead, she celebrates the skill and commitment each of these jobs entails, admiring the dedication and determination of the people whose stories she tells.