Ten years ago I wrote a study of twentieth-century American drama. It quickly outgrew its proposed length, expanding from one brief volume to three extensive ones. Eight years later I was asked to write a 30,000 word section of the Cambridge History of American Theatre. I had reached 170,000 words before I realised I had inadvertently written another book. Discipline has never been my strong suit. I did then complete the original commission but what follows is that accidental study. It covers territory I have charted before and there are bound to be a few echoes, but it is surprising how a familiar country can change over time. The book is offered as a series of reflections on American drama in the second half of the twentieth century. It does not aim to be comprehensive. What I hope it does is reflect my fascination with writers who in staging their plays have also staged the anxieties, the tensions and the myths of a nation en route from a world war to the end of a millennium.