This volume collects Professor Parker's major writings on American agricultural and industrial history, including some previously unpublished essays. Taken as a whole, these essays give an account of why and how the United States grew rich in the nineteenth century, as well as a background against which to judge the present position of the economy and its international position. Professor Parker focuses on the nineteenth-century experience of the three regions of the United States - northeast, south and midwest, and shows wherein lay the sources of their wealth and growth into a flourishing nation. A final chapter, looking at European development from an American perspective, is especially timely in view of the recent movements toward integration and democratisation in the 'mother continent'.