Sunflowers, Storms, and Stubborn Souls

An Irreverent History of Kansas

By: Jordan Blake Carter

Narrated by: Ashlie Hennings

Kansas is not the quiet heartland you learned about in school. It is the crossroads where every national argument, natural disaster, and ambitious dream once stopped for a drink. In Sunflowers, Storms, and Stubborn Souls, Jordan Blake Carter tells the history of Kansas the way it deserves to be told. Bold. Funny. Honest. And completely unfiltered.

This book takes you from the ancient tallgrass prairie to the chaos of the territorial era, when Kansas held a full rehearsal for the Civil War. It explores cattle towns where lawmen tried to keep order, wheat fields that fed millions, dust storms that turned day into night, and missile silos buried beneath quiet farms. Along the way you meet the characters who shaped the Sunflower State, including Indigenous nations who knew the land, abolitionists who refused to back down, cowboys who rode into trouble, pilots who reshaped aviation, and families who rebuilt their lives after storms that seemed impossible to survive.

Kansas emerges as a place of grit and grace. A place where small towns hold strong, where basketball is a sacred language, where barbecue smoke fills the air after long weeks, and where the wind always has something to say.

Irreverent, vivid, and packed with real history, this book reveals the Kansas that outsiders never see. The Kansas that just keeps going. The Kansas that changes the world in ways people often overlook. The Kansas that refuses to be boring.

If you think you know Kansas, you are in for a surprise.

©2025 Jordan Blake Carter (P)2026 Jordan Blake Carter