This book contains some good information, but is unfortunately too skewed in its presentation to be a really valuable contribution to our understanding of American history. Industry, Republicans, and the protective tariff are the heroes, while farmers, silverites, Democrats and Southerners are the scoundrels in this history about modernization and centralization. Industry, profit, nationalism and realism are good; agrarian values, unions, localism and romantic aesthetics are bad. The book is more interesting as a nationalist document than it as an account of the past. It is also strange to read a chapter of 40some pages about 'national culture' which is only concerned with operas, symphonies, novels, and paintings. The author does not present any evidence suggesting that this 'culture' had any meaning or influence outside the cosmopolitan elite. This book is of course almost 30 years old, but even in the 70s this must have been stale and quaint.