The job, he said, was part of the inspiration behind his book “Hoosiers: A New History of Indiana” as he pursued his research.
Madison spoke briefly and acknowledged those who contributed while at a book signing at Lilly Library on Wednesday.
“I’m half serious when I say the students made me do it,” Madison, a Pennsylvania native, said.
This is not the first comprehensive history of the state that Madison has authored.
When he set out to write “Hoosiers,” he had initially intended to just update his 1986 book, “The Indiana Way: A State History.”
At that time, he said, he quickly realized that his original work had become outdated. There was work to be done and merely an update to the existing work would not suffice.
“There’s new scholarship to consider, and we just have a different perspective than 20 to 30 years ago,” Madison said.
The roles of women and African-Americans in Indiana history are just some areas of academia that he said have had a considerable growth in scholarship.
His book, Madison said, claims that the way of change for Hoosiers is often “evolutionary, not revolutionary,” and that Hoosiers are often “comfortable, but maybe too comfortable.”
Despite this slow movement, Madison said there are still times in Indiana’s history that are quite ?explosive.
Madison devoted an entire chapter of his new book to the effect the Civil War had on Indiana.
He called it a time of immense “importance and turbulence for the state.”
His writing discusses the bitter divisions drawn between Hoosiers that supported President Abraham Lincoln and those who supported slavery.
The release of “Hoosiers” has been timed to anticipate Indiana’s bicentennial in 2016.
Madison said he does not think the Hoosiers at Indiana’s centennial anniversary would have ever expected they’d be eating sushi and playing soccer in 100 years.
The final chapter of his book, titled “Some Thoughts on Twenty-First-Century Hoosiers”, touches on these changes that have occurred over the years.
Xuan Li, a junior studying Central Eurasian studies, attended Madison’s book signing.
Li is an international student, and Madison’s family is hosting him in the United States.
He said that in his two years spent living in Bloomington, he has come to “love Indiana as a state and wants to know more about (its) history.”
Madison said he had one important message about the Hoosier state for those who gathered at the signing:
“Whether you love it or whether you hate it,” he said, “it is there, and it is far more important than most people understand.”
