In Volume Two of this critical and epic history of the United States of America, the new industrial civilization takes the virgin continent in its vise. The sheer size of the space to be tamed and exploited propels the young nation to pinnacles of ingenuity and greed. Immense resources in humans and commodities, such as exist nowhere else and will never exist again, are thrown into production. While the autochtonous peoples are suppressed and exterminated, the descendants of the displaced Africans struggle out of appalling conditions of slavery. Masses of hopeful humanity from the old continent are sucked into dreams of prosperity and of a decent life which will come true only for their descendants. While expanding gigantically, the Republic threatens to break apart and saves itself only by resorting to a fratricide war, the first industrialized war in history. A civilization emerges, where man is no longer "the measure of all things."