Review of The Federal Landscape: An Economic History of the Twentieth-Century by West. Gerald D. Nash

摘要

Without question, the federal government created the twentieth-century West. It built dams and distributed water to farmers and urbanites, constructed federal highways that permitted the development of the region's natural resources, established navy, army, and air force installations, and provided contracts for the post-World War II military-industrial complex and aerospace industry. By so doing, the federal government made an indelible imprint on the Western landscape, in much contrast to the nineteenth century when individual enterprise gave the region its economic, social, and political identity.