The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History: Volume 4: Global America, 1915-2000 [Hardcover]

D. W. Meinig (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 11, 2004 | ISBN-10: 0300104324 | ISBN-13: 978-0300104325

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.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“This splendid work concludes the most ambitious writing project of any American geographer, ever. Global America meets and even exceeds the high standards set by the previous three volumes. Meinig’s interpretation leads finally to the global scale, which became the essential stage for American ambitions in the second half of the twentieth century.”—John C. Hudson, Northwestern University

From the Inside Flap

"This splendid work concludes the most ambitious writing project of any American geographer, ever. Global America meets and even exceeds the high standards set by the previous three volumes. Meinig’s interpretation leads finally to the global scale, which became the essential stage for American ambitions in the second half of the twentieth century."--John C. Hudson, Northwestern University

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 488 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (October 11, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300104324
• ISBN-13: 978-0300104325
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 7.1 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,684,883 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Fine End to a Magisterial Work, February 26, 2005

By 

Richard L. Goldfarb (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History: Volume 4: Global America, 1915-2000 (Hardcover)

For 20 years, D.W Meinig has been producing a work of superhuman scope, covering the development of America from the time of Columbus from a geographical perspective. Each of the four volumes contains eye-opening information that cannot help but change your perspective on this country.

The first two-thirds of the fourth volume are really continuations of the themes of the third book, showing how the landscape of America was changed by first the creation of interconnecting highways and then by airways (we don't think of air routes as having geographical impact, but Meinig shows how they do), and then following up with the resulting internal migration that involved the development of suburbs to the detriment of urban cores (and which cities escaped the worst of it) and the movement from Rust Belt to Sun Belt that changed the political as well as geographical landscape.

One great discussion, which was entirely new to me, involved when the decision was made to reapportion Congress without increasing its size, how that was impacted by early 20th century immigration policy, and how it affects us in profound and unintended ways to this day.

The last part of the book, which fits more into Meinig's Global America title, is somewhat rushed and probably could use some revisions when more perspective is gained. He covers well the stretching of American power across the globe as a result of the World Wars and the Cold War, but doesn't really cover the degree to which American institutions, from Coca-Cola to Wal-Mart, shape the current world landscape. For a book that ends in 2000, I would have expected some discussion of the WTO riots in Seattle in 1999. By ending it at that artificial date, of course, he doesn't cover 9/11 or its aftermath, with their clear effects on the landscape from changes in the usage patterns of airports to the wall thrown up around the Washington Monument. While he covers the special relations between Ireland and Irish-Americans in a short paragraph near the end, he says nothing of the Chaldean-Americans in Detroit and the Kurdish-Americans in Nashville, whom we just witnessed voting in their homeland's elections (albeit after this volume was published).

These are nits, and as I said, Meinig was handicapped by the fact that much of what has happened to Global America was happening while he was doing his writing. The fact is that this work is absolutely the most engaging series on this topic that has ever been written and will stand as a monument to the ability of a single writer to reshape our understanding of such a basic topic for years to come.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A worthy conclusion to the series, November 9, 2006

By 

J. F. Doehner "non-fiction lover" (Manchester, NH USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History: Volume 4: Global America, 1915-2000 (Hardcover)

Having read the first three volumes of the series before this one was published, I was waiting for this final volume. Professor Meinig is again up to his usual high standards. For anyone with an interest in both history and geography, the entire series provides an overall framework in which to view the past. The rewards of reading the entire series certainly, for me anyway, justifies reading the entire 2000+ pages.

3.0 out of 5 stars good book but needs more maps and less words, April 20, 2009

By 

Steve Talbert (Chicago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History: Volume 4: Global America, 1915-2000 (Shaping of America; A Geographical Perspective of 500 Years of History) (Paperback)

I am pasting this in all 4 volumes of the series. I read all when I had a broken leg this winter.

A little academic. Worth reading for the knowledge of our country. But, part of the interest in Geography is in seeing the physical ramifications of what is being talked about... more maps, please.

But I didn't rank it high because I felt sometimes as if I was rereading a passage I had just read a couple of pages back. I guess it was written in that old fashioned style of "tell-tell-tell" approach. ["Tell them what you're going to say. Say it. Then remind them what you said. ] BORING.. who has time to read things 3 times these days !?!?!? Maybe a little editing could get the page count from 600 down to 300 and add more maps?!?

I would have given it a higher rank if it gave a summary overview and then wrote the account and ended with a summary - BUT THEY NEED TO BE DIFFERENT WORDS, SENTENCES, and IDEAS..... NOT THE EXACT SAME SENTENCES.