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collects Professor Parker's major writings on American agricultural and industrial history, including some previously unpublished essays.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'.

"Parker's work touches on almost all of the issues and research that have, in the past thirty-five years, completely restructured our understanding of American economic development. No one with the slightest acquaintance with recent American historiography will be surprised by the very strong sections on slavery and Southern agriculture and on agriculture in the Midwest--these are, after all, the subjects that made Bill famous. To those who do not know him well, however, the equally strong chapters covering the growth of industry and the relationship between politics and economic development will come as a very pleasant surprise." Lance E. Davis, California Institute of Technology

"...these essays are jewels that have been enjoyed by more than one generation of scholars. My own teachers studied Parker's early work; as a student, I had the pleasure of contemplating many of these papers; now, with the completion of this two-volume series, my students will have easy access to all of them. This process has no doubt been repeated over the life cycles of many contemporary economic historians at universities across the country; long may it continue." Lee A. Craig, Business History Review

"The fascinating second volume of Europe, America, and the Wider World brings together several (published and unpublished) works of the quality that have made the author an eminent economic historian....a contribution not only to the study of American economic history, but also to the use of socioeconomics in historical analysis." Avner Greif, Journal of Interdisciplinary History