This landmark book, the concluding volume of D. W. Meinig’s magisterial series The Shaping of America, presents the story of America’s interwoven history and geography from 1915 to 2000. The author describes decades of enormous national growth and change in his characteristic engaging style, and through more than seventy original maps he ingeniously depicts diverse twentieth-century trends and developments. The book addresses the expanding nation’s progress in terms of the automotive revolution; neotechnic evolution; access to air travel; growth of instantaneous forms of communication, including telephones, television, and the Internet; and such political events as World War II. Meinig relates these developments to social and geographic trends, among them patterns of urban migration, regionalism, metropolitanization, the beginnings of the urban megalopolis, shifts in ethnic and religious populations, and, on a more global scale, transformations in America’s connections with Europe, Asia, and Latin America. A masterful synthesis of twentieth-century history and geography, this book offers unprecedented insights into the shaping and reshaping of the United States over the past century.

A Perspective on U.S. Farm Problems and Agricultural Policy provides a framework for evaluating national policy alternatives and attempts to improve our understanding of the nature of U.S. farm sector and its problems.

This project had origins in 1987 in communication between Yutaka Yoshioka, Chairman, Japan International Agricultural Council, and Kenneth Farrell, Vice President for Agriculture and Natural Resources, the University of California-Berkeley. Projects were proposed in "long-term food and consumption trends" and "a comparative analysis of farm structure in the United States and Japan" (letter from Farrell to Yoshioka, April 20, 1987). Proposals and counterproposals were sent back and forth but the project accelerated after Professor Wen Chern of The Ohio State University learned of the project from Professor Naraomi Imamura of the University of Tokyo on a visit to Tokyo in September 1989. Because of pressing administrative responsibilities precluding an active role in the project, Kenneth Farrell recommended to Professor Imamura that the project be carried out with Professor Chern and associates.